Colloque international

Reading White Innocence

Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race


Info

Dates
24 March 2021
Location
Zoom
Schedule
De 13h00 à 18h10
Price
Accès libre mais inscription souhaitée

The Dutch Studies section is proud to announce the conference Reading White Innocence. Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race. This conference will discuss the concept of White Innocence, which has been introduced by Gloria Wekker in her book of the same name, as well as its implications for literature, language and culture. The conference will take place online, on Wednesday March 24, 2021 and is organized within the context of the King Willem-Alexander Chair for Dutch Studies at ULiège.

The conference centres on the work of Gloria Wekker, a Dutch anthropologist and writer of Surinamese origin. Gloria Wekker is Visiting Professor at ULiège for the academic years 2019-2020 and 2020-2021.

The conference is jointly organized by the Lilith and CEREP Research Units of ULiège.

Programme

13:00 Introduction: Kris Steyaert and Elisabeth Bekers

13:10 Stefan Grondelaers (Radboud University Nijmegen) - Accent Discrimination in the Netherlands: Is Aïcha allowed more than Ahmed?

13:40 Kathleen Gyssels (University of Antwerp) - Queering Wekker with Wynter and Taubira: Sycorax’ Sisters in the Struggle against White Male Heteronormative Prejudice

14:10 Liesbeth Minnaard (Leiden University) - ‘Heb je dat, betrokken blanke wereldburger?’ Black Refugees and White Compassion in Two Works by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer

14:40 Coffee break

15:00 Dominiek Dendooven (In Flanders Fields Museum, Ypres) - White… or not quite: The Issue of Race in First World War Studies

15:30 Bastien BOMANS (University of Liège) – Beyond White Gays / Gaze: Imperialist Nostalgia, Racialized Homophobia and Queer Extravaganza

16:00 Agnes Andeweg (Utrecht University) – Exploring Layers in the Cultural Archive : the Case of Rembrandt’s Painting of Two Black men

16:30 Coffee break

16:45 Keynote lecture by Gloria Wekker – Beyond White Innocence in the Academy

17:45 Discussion, moderator Elisabeth Bekers (Free University Brussels)

18:10 End

About Gloria WEKKER

Gloria Wekker is Professor Emeritus of Gender Studies. She has occupied the chair for Gender and Ethnicity Studies at the University of Utrecht and was the coordinator of the Master's programme "Comparative Women's Studies in Culture and Politics". She was also the director of GEM, the Center for Gender, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism in higher education. In 2017 she was named by ScienceGuide as one of the ten most influential researchers in the Netherlands.

After studying cultural anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, Gloria Wekker obtained a PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In her dissertation I Am a Gold Coin: The Construction of Selves, Gender and Sexualities in a Female, Working-Class, Afro-Surinamese Setting (defended in 1992), she examines the sexual subjectivity of Creole working-class women in Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname. A Dutch edition was published in 1994. In 2006, she published a sequel to this work, this time from a transcontinental perspective: The Politics of Passion; Women's Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006). This work was awarded the Ruth Benedict Prize of the American Anthropological Association in 2007.

Gloria Wekker has a particular interest in gender studies and sexuality issues in the Caribbean and the Caribbean Diaspora, but her publications cover areas as diverse as knowledge systems in the academic world and in the Dutch multicultural society, diversity in university curricula, and the history of movements of persons of colour, women, migrants, and refugees in the Netherlands. In addition, she also writes short stories and poetry.

 

Key publications

  • (Dissertation) "I am gold money": (I pass through all hands, but I do not lose my value): The construction of selves, gender and sexualities in a female working class, Afro-Surinamese setting, University of California, Los Angeles, 1992
  • Ik ben een gouden munt, ik ga door vele handen, maar verlies mijn waarde niet: Subjectiviteit en seksualiteit van Creoolse volksklasse vrouwen in Paramaribo, Amsterdam, VITA, 1994
  • Nesten bouwen op een winderige plek: Denken over gender en etniciteit in Nederland, Utrecht, Universiteit Utrecht, Faculteit der Letteren, 2002
  • Of mimic men and unruly women: Exploring sexuality and gender in Surinamese family systems, Cave Hill, Barbados, University of the West Indies, 2001
  • The Politics of Passion: Women's Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora, New York, Columbia University Press, 2006
  • White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race, Durham, North Carolina, Duke University Press, 2016

About the Chair

The King Willem-Alexander Chair was created at the University of Liège in June 2017 as the result of a collaboration between the ULiège and the Embassy of the Netherlands. It aims to promote the study of Dutch language, literature and culture, and allows the University of Liège to invite eminent Dutch academics of international stature to give scientific lectures and seminars.

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