About the event

 

The Margherita von Brentano Center for Gender Studies at Freie Universität Berlin is organizing for this summer term 2021, the third edition of the Transnational Feminist Dialogues. The online series will be held in May, June and July under the title: 

"Transnational Feminist Dialogues in Times of the Neoliberal University".

The current series focusses on the neoliberal character of today´s higher educational system and want to address some structural phenomena related to power relations from a critical perspective. Our invitation is to reflect and discuss which discourses, policies and actors are shaping universities in times when neoliberalism has reached all spheres of the higher educational system and what alternatives we have to counter this one-sidedness

The first session, "Dismantling Knowledge Asymmetries and Power Relations in Gender Studies”, will focus on the question about the asymmetries that shape the production and circulation of knowledge not only within Gender Studies, but also within/between Diversity, Queer, Intersectionality and Postcolonial Studies. We will discuss about the way in which marginalized and/or critical perspectives and voices find their way in the neoliberal higher educational system, but also the depoliticization of this feminist intellectual projects in the neoliberal university. By pointing out the plurality of actors, institutions and perspectives involved in the processes of knowledge production in these fields, we want to discuss the multiplicity of asymmetries entangled.

The second session, “Questioning racist structures in Academia: perspectives from the Gender Studies”, puts the focus on the racist structures that shape science and academia and the contributions that Gender Studies can make to dismantle them, forms of resistance and the possibilities of solidarity, both within the academy/university context and beyond its borders. 

The third session, "Decolonizing Feminist Teaching in Neoliberal Times”, will attend to go deep into the synergies between decolonial and feminist perspectives and will bring to discussion what a decolonization of feminist teaching would look like and how it can take place in the neoliberal higher educational system. Questions we would like to discuss are: What happens with feminist pedagogies nowadays? Do they have a challenging power? Is it possible to create radical and alternative spaces within neoliberal academia? What possibilities does the pedagogical space offers unlike other academic practices?

 

PROGRAM:

Dates: Thursdays, 27.05.2021, 24.06.2021 and 22.07.2021 (3 sessions) always from 4-5.30pm (CEST)

 

27.05.2021: Dismantling Knowledge Asymmetries and Power Relations in Gender Studies

Exhibitors:

Teresa Kulawik (Södertörn University)

Maria do Mar Pereira (University of Warwick)

 

24.06.2021: Questioning racist structures in Academia: perspectives from the Gender Studies

Exhibitors:

Heidi Safia Mirza (Goldsmith)

Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez (Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen)

 

22.07.2021: Decolonizing Feminist Teaching in Neoliberal Times

Exhibitors:

Radhika Govinda (University of Edinburgh)

Sara de Jong (University of York) and Rosalba Icaza (Erasmus University Rotterdam) 

 

To view the recording of the sessions, please follow this link: 

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqiyv4YjL2YLl2YXmbGCQzkX0IJiJK-jp

Organizers: Sabina García Peter and Nina Lawrenz

More information: mvbz@fu-berlin.de