"Afterlives of Postcolonialism," Centre for Postcolonial Studies, Goldsmiths College, University of London, October 25-26, 2008.

In recent times some scholars have proclaimed that postcolonial theory has exhausted its critical energies- at the very time that it has been taken up by scholars and activists not located in English or Literature departments, the area where postcolonial theory made its early impact and sometimes found an institutional home. The Centre for Postcolonial Studies at Goldsmiths is organising a conference on the “Afterlives of Postcolonialism”- the ‘after’ referring both to its life/lives after the proclamation of its death, and also to its life after/outside the study of literature. In what ways can/has postcolonial theory been taken up by artists, architects and scholars of art and architecture, by those who study politics, anthropology and sociology, and area studies, and to what effects? Does it merely provide another way of ‘reading’ texts, to does it have the potential to destabilize and reconfigure practices and disciplines? And what happens to postcolonial theory when it moves into politics, art, sociology, and area studies; what mutations does it undergo, or need to undergo? Drawing upon speakers from a range of geographical (India, the U.S., South Africa, Palestine, the U.K.) and disciplinary locations (everything from architecture to art, film, music, politics. . .), involving practitioners as well as theorists, this conference asks whether postcolonial theory still has any life in it- and what sorts of lives it is leading once it travels outside of literature. Confirmed speakers include: Harry Harootunian, History and East Asian Studies, New York University Lindsay Waters, Harvard University Press (Executive Editor of Humanities) Ivor Chipkin, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Eyal Weizman, Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths Robert Fine, Sociology, Warwick University Sandi Hilal, UNRWA, West Bank Rangan Chakravarty, film producer, KolkotaAlessandro Petti, International Art Academy, Palestine Gurminder Bhambra, Sociology, Warwick University Paramita Brahmachari, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkota Sonia Boyce, Artist, AHRC Research Fellow, Wimbledon College of Art & Design, University of the Arts London Andrew Cross, Artist Marko Daniel, Curator of Public Programmes, Tate Modern Leon Wainwright, Manchester Metropolitan University Visit the conference homepage here: http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/postcolonial-studies/afterlives.php.