Progamme
The conference will be held at Bielefeld University 29 to 31 May 2025.
Below you’ll find the schedule for the conference. We’ll keep this page regularly updated with all new speakers and sessions, so be sure to keep checking in!
- from 11:00
- X-Building, Bielefeld University
Welcome & Registration
- 12:00 - 15:30
- Lecture Hall 001
Annual General Meeting (AGM)
- 15:30 - 16:15
Coffee Break & Registration
Information: because of the bank holiday, all normal lunch options at Bielefeld University are closed
- 16:15 - 17:00
- Lecture Hall 001
Opening & Award Ceremony
- 17:00 - 18:30
- Nivedita Majumdar
- Lecture Hall 001
Key Note Lecture: Nivedita Majumdar
Capital Matters: Culture, History, Politics
Conference Dinner (self-paying event)
https://www.ich-bin-nichtschwimmer.de/
- 09:00 - 10:30
Panels
Debt, Developmentalism and Postcolonial Capitalism (Room 200)
Chair: Silke Stroh
Michael Niblett
University of Warwick, UK
Caribbean Apocalypses: Debt and Dystopia in Contemporary Caribbean Writing → Abstract
Jaya Sharma
Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Dehli, India
Reimaging Natureculture: Narratives of Resistance to “Developmentalism” in Contemporary Hindi Literature → Abstract
Isabella Kalte
Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany
Reading The Long Song through the Lens of Postcolonial Capitalism: Entrepreneurship, Gender, and Resistance → Abstract
Migration, Movement, Transnationalism (Room 202)
Chair: Harald Pittel
Sebastian Berg
Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
‘Stop the Boats’: Migration, Capitalism, and Cultural Political Economy → Abstract
Louis Breitsohl
Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich, Germany
Lifeworldly Contradictions: Displaced Knowledge, Migrating Bodies, and the Affective Sphere → Abstract
Oluwadunni Talabi
University of Bremen, Germany
Fragmented Unity: Tracing Trans-National Black Identities and Class Fractures in Kobby Ben Ben’s No One Dies Yet (2023) → Abstract
Capitalist Realism and Beyond (Room 205)
Chair: Kylie Crane
Sofie Fingado
Universities of Potsdam, Germany and Melbourne, Australia
Guantánamo Economies: Value Production and Counter-Economies → Abstract
- 10:30 - 11:00
Coffee Break
- 11:00 - 12:30
Panels
Cultural Studies Approaches to Neoliberal Capitalism (Room 200)
Chair: Marlena Tronicke
Alexander Rüter
University of Cologne, Germany
The View from Space(X): The Planetary, Global Agency, and Start-Up Thinking → Abstract
Nora Pleßke
University of Magdeburg, Germany
(Post)Colonial Econotopes: Infrastructures of Imperial and Neoliberal Capitalism → Abstract
Harald Pittel
Leipzig University, Germany
Structure of Feeling as a Mode of Resistance? Countering the Capitalist Crisis of Indian Cinema → Abstract
Re-Reading Anti- and Postcolonial Theory (Room 202)
Chair: Mark Stein
Leo Grabowski
Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Locating Frantz Fanon in “Post-Apartheid” South Africa – Towards Post-Racist and Post-Capitalist Alternatives → Abstract
Amjad Hussain Sajjad Khan
Qurtuba University, Pakistan
Reclaiming the Heritage of Resistance: Philosophical Foundations of Postcolonial Theory → Abstract
Akshay Kumar
Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), New Delhi, India
Reimagining Postcolonialism: Ambedkar, Caste, and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Context → Abstract
Discussion Panel: Material Matters and Environmental Justice in a Postcolonial World (Lecture Hall 001)
Christine Lorre & Melissa Kennedy
University of Caen, France – University of Vienna, Austria
Discussion Panel: Material Matters and Environmental Justice in a Postcolonial World → Abstract
- 12:30 - 14:00
- Mensa (Mittelbau meeting in sowls-Cafeteria)
Lunch (self-paid), incl. Informal lunch meeting for Mittelbau members of GAPS
Lunch Options
Mensa (X-Building)
Card only
Warm meals, salad bar, dessert and cold drinks
Vegetarian and vegan options
Cafeteria (X-Building)
Card only
Sweet / savory snacks, warm meals and warm / cold drinks
Vegetarian and vegan options
sowls-Cafeteria (main building)
Card only
Part A/B in the main building (on the left hand side from the X-Building)
Sweet / savory snacks, warm meals, warm / cold drinks, cereal bar (morning) and salad bar (noon)
Vegetarian and vegan options, drinks can be ordered with vegan and lactose-free milk options
Univarza (main building)
Cash and card
Turkish-Mediterranean restaurant with lunch offer: 12:30am – 2pm / 12,90€
Vegetarian and vegan options
Coffee-Bar “Ins Grüne” → eng. “Into the Green” (X-Building)
Card only
Small snacks and warm / cold drinks
Vegetarian and vegan options, drinks can be ordered with vegan and lactose-free milk options
Poolbar Westend (main building)
Card only
Small snacks and warm / cold drinks
Vegetarian and vegan options, drinks can be ordered with vegan and lactose-free milk options
- 14:00 - 15:30
Panels
Extractive capitalisms in literature (Room 200)
Chair: Geoff Rodoreda
Rita Nnodim
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA), USA
Expulsions, Resistance, and Literary Imaginations of the “Other” – Globalization, Mining, and the Africa-China Nexus in Koli Jean Bofane’s Congo Inc. Bismarck’s Testament → Abstract
Lakshmi Chithra Dilipkumar
University of Augsburg, Germany
Jaan Denge, Zamin Nahi Denge: Extractive capitalism and indigenous resistance in Siddharth Sarma’s Year of the Weeds and Imbolo Mbue’s How Beautiful We Were → Abstract
Arindam Saha
Pondicherry University, India
Towards a Republic of Local-World Letters: A Decolonial Reading of Coal Miners’ Narratives → Abstract
Care and repair (Room 202)
Chair: Lucy Gasser
Cherise Fung
University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Reading Silence: A Nonhuman Turn in the Crisis of Care → Abstract
Tola Ositelu
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium
Problematising the Meritocratic ‘Self’ in Post-migrant Narratives of Mobility and Care → Abstract
Dorit Neumann
University of Münster, Germany
“Frenzied, gnashing of teeth, devouring her body”: Cannibal Capitalism and Colonial Hauntings in Danaé Wellington’s Performance Poetry → Abstract
Under Construction: PhD Projects (Room 205)
Chair: Frauke Harms
Ruvindra Sathsarani
University of Tübingen, Germany
Reading the Subaltern Worker through her Master: A Deconstructive Reading of the Master-Servant Narrative within Post-Colonial Capitalism → Abstract
Tingxuan Liu
University of Warwick, UK
Asian Modernity as Neoliberal Dessert: Realism and the Global Gaze in Crazy Rich Asians → Abstract
- 15:30 - 16:00
Coffee Break
- 16:00 - 17:00
Panels
Critiques of Capitalism in Literary Studies and Teaching (Room 200)
Chair: Jana Gohrisch
Frank Schulze-Engler
Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
“It’s the Imagination, Stupid”: Economism, Ethics, and the Labour of World Anglophone Studies → Abstract
Dale Jones
University of Klagenfurt, Austria
Freedom for the Pike? Poverty and Capitalism in German EFL Schoolbooks → Abstract
Raja Shehadeh: A reading and discussion with Geoff Rodoreda (Lecture Hall 001)
Raja Shehadeh
A reading and discussion with Geoff Rodoreda on Land, Place and Mobility → Abstract
Postcolonial and post-handover Hong Kong (Room 205)
Chair: Rita Maricocchi
Wang Yuen Ho
University of Münster, Germany
Post-handover Cultural Identity and Political Resistance in Hong Kong: Speaking through Unfree Speech → Abstract
- 17:00 - 17:15
Break
- 17:15 - 18:45
- Lecture Hall 001
Panel Discussion
Doing Anglophone Postcolonial Studies in German-Speaking Countries
Doing Anglophone Postcolonial Studies in German-Speaking Countries
- 09:00 - 10:30
Panels & Roundtable
Plantation Capitalism (Room 200)
Chair: Timo Müller
Felipe Espinoza Garrido
University of Münster, Germany
Writing global capitalism in eighteenth century Caribbean Creole testimonies: Imagining ‘the plot’ and the early Plantationocene → Abstract
Annabell Fender
Universities of Potsdam, Germany and Melbourne, Australia
Past and Present Ideas of Purity, Productivity and Progress: the Introduction of the Italian Honeybee and the Modern Apis-Industrial Complex in So-Called Australia → Abstract
Caitlin Vandertop
University of Warwick, UK
Body, Island, Plantation: Capitalist Intimacies in the Oceanic Novel → Abstract
Roundtable: Teaching Postcolonial Studies in the English Classroom (Lecture Hall 001)
Chair: Ellen Grünkemeier
Sina Isabel Freund
University of Koblenz, Germany
Roger Dale Jones
University of Klagenfurt, Austria
Melissa Kennedy
University of Vienna, Austria
Lotta König
Bielefeld University, Germany
→ Abstract
- 10:30 - 11:00
Coffee Break
- 11:00 - 12:30
- Ericka Beckman
- Lecture Hall 001
Keynote Lecture: Ericka Beckman
Agrarian Questions: The Latin American Novel on the Road to Capitalism
- 12:30 - 14:30
- Uhuru Portia Phalafala and Hanneke Stuit
- Lecture Hall 001
Reading: Uhuru Portia Phalafala, incl. Brown Bag Lunch
"Mine Mine Mine" in conversation with Hanneke Stuit
- 14:30