October 26–27, 2023 | University of Cologne
We are excited to announce that the official programme for our MESH Symposium “Decolonial Cultural Ecologies” on 26–27 October 2023 has been released and can be downloaded here.
Registration is free, but required for catering purposes and to attend the keynotes remotely.
To register please contact Saskia Maassen: smaasse3
uni-koeln.de
The overall objective of our MESH 2023 Symposium “Decolonial Cultural Ecologies” is to highlight the crucial importance of the environmental humanities to the integration of culturally diverse and decolonial knowledges, imaginaries and practices into what is currently referred to through a Euro-western lens as global environmental change research and biodiversity conservation policy development.
Keynote Speakers
Our symposium’s opening keynote on Thursday evening will be presented by Professor James Ogude from University of Pretoria, South Africa. Prof Ogude is the director of the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship where he leads the African Observatory for Environmental Humanities. Among his many publications is a co-edited volume on Environmental Humanities of Extraction in Africa: Poetics and Politics of Exploitation. He also leads the Southern African Hub of the BRIDGES Sustainability Science Coalition.
Our second keynote will be presented on Friday morning by Professor Anne Pattel-Gray, Professor of Indigenous Studies and inaugural Head of the School of Indigenous Studies at the Australian University of Divinity. She is a descendant of the Bidjara / Kari Kari people of Queensland and a celebrated Aboriginal theologian, biblical scholar and Indigenous activist. Among her many publications is De-Colonising the Biblical Narrative (vol. 1, 2022), co-authored with Norman Habel in collaboration with Australian First Nations.
Panelists
Our invited speakers represent a group of interdisciplinary experts that will provide their regional insights on decolonial cultural ecologies from the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Africa:
Dany Adone (Applied English Linguistics, University of Cologne)
Michaela Haug (Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Freiburg)
Franz Krause (Social and Cultural Anthropology, Global South Studies Center (GSSC), University of Cologne)
Kenneth Nsah (Comparative Literature and Environmental Humanities, University of Lille)
José Augusto Pádua (Brazilian Environmental History, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)
Bieke Willem (Romance Literature, GSSC, University of Cologne)
Dan Smyer Yü (Ethnology, University of Yunnan; Global Faculty Member, GSSC, University of Cologne)
Hubert Zapf (Environmental Humanities, University of Augsburg)