We are pleased to invite papers for a Symposium on "Arts and Decolonisation" organised by the School of Performing and Digital Arts to be held on 19 March 2021.
This symposium is a joint student-staff initiative welcoming participation from all Departments across the School of Performing and Digital Arts and the School of Humanities. Debates about decolonisation cover a wide range of areas from history and heritage to art and education, and they form a part of postcolonial cultures and identity politics. In view of these debates, as well as goals of justice, healing and freedom as highlighted by the Black Lives Matter movement, this symposium aims to consider how the pursuit of equality and diversity across the globe features in scholarly debates within our Schools.
The anthropologist Elizabeth Edwards asserts that the presence of the colonial is a fundamental experience of contemporary life; it is not merely a question of continuity and rupture. The presence of the colonial forms part of our daily experiences. Various disciplines respond to the need to tackle structural bias and persistent undercurrents of inequality, necessitating decolonisation of “the mind”, critically rethinking our assumptions about the world and re-examining our practices within academia and beyond. As Walter Mignolo (2011) suggests with the concept of “epistemic disobedience”, decolonial thinking requires relentless effort to challenge Eurocentric systems of thought, including within scholarship.
In his book “Decolonising the Mind” Ngugi Wa Thiong’o (1986) argues for the importance of decolonising more than just politics and economics; he argues for the necessity to decolonise language as the basis of literature and theatre. Kofi Agawu (2003) tackles the importance of representation, stimulating discourses on African music by challenging assumptions and prejudices embodied in the presentation of ethnographic data. Nadira Omarjee (2018) enunciates the importance of thinking beyond one’s own lived experiences, challenging our own perceptions, with the aim of achieving critical pedagogy and sharing the lived experiences of others in any space that we occupy as academics.
Drawing on these debates, this symposium aims to confront issues of racial, ethnic, religious, gender or other inequalities, as well as of enduring colonial practices underpinning systemic biases. It seeks to encourage students from the various disciplines within the Schools to share ideas about the ways in which the processes of decolonisation connect to their own research, particularly on the role and impact of arts on challenging colonial biases and in forming postcolonial academic environments. We welcome papers and practice-based research presentations such as video essays and performances. Proposals can focus on any historical period or theme, and on any discipline from history and literature to theatre, music, and dance.
Submissions should consist of a title, an abstract of no more than 250 words, and a short biography of no more than 100 words. In the case of submitting a practice-based piece please also send a link, pictures, or any other relevant materials. Please email submissions to aniarani.andita.2018live.rhul.ac.uk by 28 January 2021.
Participation in the symposium will be through virtual attendance.
CfP dates:
28 January 2021 - Deadline for abstract submissions
5 February 2021 - Review outcomes
If you have any queries about the conference, please contact the organisers at the email above.
With best wishes,
The Symposium Committee:
Music
- Snezhina Gulubova, PhD Candidate, Music in Cuba and the Diaspora
- Aniarani Andita, PhD Student, Western classical music in Indonesia
- Tina K. Ramnarine, Professor of Music, RHUL
Theatre and Dance
- Desiree Sanchez Meineck, MA Student Theatre by Research
Media
- Adriana Páramo, PhD Student, Documentary practice and Gender
Humanities
- Chloe Lee, PhD Student, Creative History through Migration Stories
English
- Theadora Jean, PhD Student, Critical & Creative Writing
Doctoral School
- Laura S. Ventura Nieto, Doctoral School Administration Assistant