On the Matter of Blackness in Europe: Transnational Perspectives

“On the Matter of Blackness in Europe: Transnational Perspectives” is a two-day international symposium taking place at UCLA on October 10-11, 2019. The symposium if free and open to the public.

The symposium, co-organized by SA Smythe (UCLA) and Vanessa Thompson (Goethe) with a keynote address by Gloria Wekker (Utrecht University), seeks to dismantle the perceived homogeneity of Black transnational and anticolonial experiences by attending to how various struggles for Black lives unfold. Scholars, artists, and activists will discuss articulations of relational Black solidarities and struggles for Black lives across Europe, foregrounding less-explored paradigms of Black formations, creations, improvisations, and struggles throughout Europe and beyond.

Participants will engage with the lived experiences of Blackness and Black political struggles across various geopolitical sites and dynamic encounters within the European context. Further, the symposium will interrogate the power relations at work within academic scholarship that determines what becomes monolithically referred to as “Black Europe.” 

For more information about the conference, including a full conference schedule and RSVP details (tickets are free), please click here.   

“On the Matter of Blackness in Europe: Transnational Perspectives” is sponsored by UCHRI; UCLA Departments of African American Studies and European Languages and Transcultural Studies; UCLA Dean of Humanities; UCLA Dean of Social Sciences; the Institute on Inequality and Democracy; the Center for the Study of Women; the Center for the Study of Religion; and the UCLA Departments of Anthropology, Gender Studies, Geography, History, Philosophy, Sociology, and Theatre.

PHOTO: Rebecca Racine Ramershoven, “Why can’t you see me?” (2014).