CFP: Frankfurt Research Center for Postcolonial Studies (FRCPS)

Invitation to participate in monthly colloquium

The Goethe University Frankfurt is very happy to announce the launch of the "Frankfurt Research Center for Postcolonial Studies“ (FRCPS), Cluster of Excellence "Formation of Normative Orders“, the first of its kind in the German speaking context with a focus on the Social Sciences. The research focus of FRCPS will be to analyze postcolonial constellations and conflicts in all their complexities by not only exploring the cultural politics between postcolonial contexts and Europe, but also placing a strong emphasis on questions of decolonization and democratization processes within evolving socio-economic and political orders. The four main research areas will be:

1) Race, Class, Gender, Sexuality and Post/Colonialism
2) Postcolonial Diasporas und Transnationalism
3) Globalization und Post-Development Studies
4) Decolonization, Democratization and Gender Justice

Besides many planned events in the forthcoming years like international conferences, lecture series and seminars on different aspects of feminist postcolonial theory, FRCPS will offer a monthly colloquium which will serve as a platform for graduate students, doctoral candidates and post-docs working in the field of Postcolonial and Gender Studies to meet and discuss their research with other colleagues. We will be reading canonical texts of Postcolonial Theory (for example: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak?”) and discussing papers submitted by participants. The FRCPS colloquium will be held in German and English and will take place monthly during the semester in Frankfurt. The first meeting being on 20th June2009, the second provisionally planned for 17th July 2009.

If you are interested in participating in the FRCPS colloquium, please send a short abstract of your current research interests (not exceeding one page) plus a short bio-note until 31st May to frcps.mail-at-googlemail.com. Should you be interested in presenting a talk and discussing it with colleagues, please additionally send us a short abstract of your proposed talk.