Critical & Decolonial Theories: A Missed dialogue?

Oct 4-5, Michigan History Department, Room 1014 Tisch Hall.

Event open to the general public, graduate and undergraduate students, and faculty. RSVP HERE.

Thu OCT 4 — from 4 to 5:30pm:

We read and discuss “Introduction” and Chapter 5 from Enzo Traverso’s 2016 book Left-Wing Melancholia: Marxism, History, and Memory. Click here for the readings.

Fri OCT 5 — from 10:00am to 1:40pm

10:00 to 11:45 Intertextual reading of short texts used by Traverso in his book. Suggested readings:

– Walter Benjamin “Theses on the Philosophy of History” (Theses 4, 6, 7, 8, 11-16)

– CLR James “Marxism for our Times“

– Fanon, “Violence in the international context”

– Adorno, “Minima Moralia” (Aphorisms 18, 33, 98, 149, 151, 153)

– WEB DuBois, “The Negro and the Warsaw Ghetto“

Click here for the readings.

11:45 to 12:30 Lunch break (from Exotic Bakery)

12:30 to 1:20pm: “Teaching with Theory”. Round table discussion, open to all, doderated by Arvind-Pal Mandair (Asian Languages and Cultures)

1:20pm to 1:40pm: Closing remarks and taking the Initiative Forward

Joining us: Surti Singh (American University in Cairo) and Sami Khatib (Leuphana University of Lüneburg).

RSVP HERE.

This event is part of the new partnership that the University of Michigan and the American University in Cairo (AUC) embarked on focusing on Public Humanities in the Global South supported by a Grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to AUC.