Money

Platform for Postcolonial Readings: MONEY

Date | Friday, 18 January 2012
Venue | Bungehuis 0.15, Spuistraat 210, Amsterdam
Registration |  nica-fgw@uva.nl
Programme POCO PLATFORM

Should postcolonial scholars not begin to talk about the one and only decisive phenomenon that energizes today’s global crisis: MONEY?

In the 1980s, the age of postcoloniality began to slip into the age of globalization. No wonder…     As Patrick Williams and Peter Childs suggest: globalization is the next stage in the ever expanding rise of capitalism, that does no longer need settler colonies to secure its imperial growth. While this does not mean that the idiom of postcolonialism has become obsolete, postcolonial scholars are facing the challenge to analyze today’s global condition in contemporary terms: how to theorize the global banking crisis, various forms of poverty, the growth of an excessively rich global upper class, and, for example, the principle of shareholder value maximization (“the dumbest idea in the world”)?

While the majority of postcolonial scholars hails from the humanities, they often keep a safe distance to economical issues. However, to be able to offer relevant reflections on the multi-faceted historical process of colonization and its manifold effects, postcolonial theory has always been interdisciplinary. The need for interdisciplinarity – an interdisciplinarity that also includes more “factual” disciplines, like economics – asserts itself now more urgently than ever.

This Platform meeting on MONEY will consist of:

• A provocative crash course in the economic principles behind the latest developments of (financial) capitalism, that has lead to the global banking crisis and the debt crisis;
• A reading and discussion of various contemporary texts in which economical insights in (financial) capitalism are related to the study of postcoloniality and globalization;
• Presentations by scholars working in this field, followed by debate
• A joint on-the-spot-analysis of Renzo Martens’ documentary film Enjoy Poverty (2008)

The readings will be distributed in preparation of the seminar and on the day itself food and drinks will be provided.

The seminar is open for all researchers, Research Master and PhD students working in the field of postcolonial studies. Please register with Eloe Kingma of NICA/OSL (nica-fgw@uva.nl).

If you would like to present your research project in the light of the meeting’s topic, please contact Isabel Hoving (I.Hoving@hum.leidenuniv.nl) or Liesbeth Minnaard (e.minnaard@hum.leidenuniv.nl). Active participation by Research Master students (presentation, response, short paper) may be awarded with 1 EC credit. For more information, contact Eloe Kingma (nica-fgw@uva.nl) or Isabel Hoving (I.Hoving@hum.leidenuniv.nl).

The Platform for Postcolonial Readings organizes seminars for all (junior) researchers in the Netherlands and Belgium who are committed to issues of postcoloniality and globalization. As an open network, platform for debate, and reading group, our meetings are open to all.  Organizers: Elisabeth Bekers (VUB), Sarah De Mul (OU), Isabel Hoving (UL), Liesbeth Minnaard (UL)