Studium Generale is het podium van de Hogeschool Gent dat studenten, docenten en belangstellenden een forum voor reflectie over maatschappij, kunst, cultuur en wetenschap biedt. In kader van het jaarthema ‘Verwondering in kunst en wetenschap’ organiseert Studium Generale samen met Festival van de Gelijkheid en Vormingplus Gent-Eeklo een namiddag en avond rond Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is afgeleid uit de Nguni-spreuk “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu,” wat vrij vertaald neerkomt op “niet ons ego, maar onze relatie tot andere mensen bepaalt wie we zijn.” Als we dus op zoek gaan naar Ubuntu, als samenleving en als mens, dan denken we in één geheel in de plaats van in categorieën. Een van de basisprincipes van Ubuntu is dan ook luisteren, oor hebben voor de stem van de ander en zoeken naar wat ons bindt. We draaien ons weg van polarisering en naar dialoog.

Donderdag 28 november in de Miry concertzaal wordt een namiddag en avond in drie delen.

Van 15u30 tot 17u stelt Ylva Berg van HUMMUS de Deep Democracy methode voor, waar dialoog centraal staat. Ze vraagt zich af hoe we op een inclusieve manier aan besluitvorming en conflictresolutie kunnen doen? Hoe kunnen we open, inclusief en samen samenleven?

Van 17u30 tot 19u staat ‘Ubuntu voor beginners‘ gepland met Babah Tarawally, schrijver en journalist, en Anette Nobuntu Mul, oprichtster van de Ubuntu Society. Zij leggen uit wat Ubuntu nu precies inhoudt en wat het voor hun heeft betekent doorheen hun leven.

Als kers op de taart verwelkomen we om 20u Sonja Kruse. Na een 351 dagen lange wandeltocht door Zuid-Afrika in 2009 gaat Sonja samen in gesprek met Marjan Meganck over de Zuid-Afrikaanse generositeit die haar tegemoet kwam tijdens haar reis. Daarbij hebben we het ook over het actueel belang van Ubuntu in Zuid-Afrika en België. (Dit gesprek verloop volledig in het Engels)

Meer informatie: http://studiumgent.be/portfolio/28-11-2019-a-story-on-wondering-and-wandering-ubuntu/

The image of the monster has been historically used to epitomise danger, abnormality, sin. Even before angels, monsters were portrayed as messengers who anticipated catastrophes, such as storms and other dramatic events which would be too strong to be explained. Only good behaviour, submission to rules or faith into another inexplicable bigger entity, such as magic, witchcraft or religion, could prevent societies to be touched by monsters.

The othering of monsters – or monsters as estranged from an imagined “us” – is part of the cultural narrative that dismisses the complexity of what we call humans, contributing to the binary division between good and bad, silencing all of which exists in-between. Indeed, monsters inhabit the spaces in-between narrow definitions and expose the failure of rigid divisions between “normal” and “abnormal”. Ultimately, the figure of monsters confronts us with the precariousness of by-default normativities, triggering the need to rethink what humanity is, and, ultimately, who counts as a human being.

The Monsters Summer School II embraces monstrosity in what it offers regarding the undoing of binaries and the celebration of embodied differences in times when the advancement of extreme-right and populism threatens our existence. We aim to explore who are the contemporary monsters, what are the dichotomies they challenge and how narratives on monsters contribute to definitions of human. We want to explore monsters as a possible theoretical figuration to escape mainstream celebrations of humanity and to embrace the vivid possibilities offered by interdisciplinary, boundary-crossing contributions from different fields of knowledge. We aim at creating spaces to discuss contributions and experiences that often fall out of the map even within critical studies. Also, we interrogate the possibilities of creating knowledge from places of estrangement regarding mainstream sources of knowledge production in the academic fields of LGBTQI+ and critical studies.

Drawing on timely, interdisciplinary theoretical contributions and intersectional empirical work on queers, crips and other misfits, the Monsters’ Summer School will consolidate academic knowledge in the fields of sexual and gender dissidence, disability and other forms of embodied misfit.

Meer informatie: https://www.ces.uc.pt/ces/cessummerschool/index.php?id=26890&id_lingua=2

Feminist scholarships have developed on the premise that producing knowledge on/by women is a necessary first step towards feminist emancipation. Even though Gender Studies have now spread within academia, there is still little to no translation of these scholarships to primary and secondary education. Based on this observation, a group of French historians produced a textbook whose purpose is to broadcast Women/Gender History as what they consider an act of academic activism.

The talk presents a study which traces the “social life” of this textbook. Through this ethnographic case study, the research explores the practice of academic activism, notably with regards to institutional contexts and material concerns.

Massilia Ourabah is a Doctoral Researcher and Teaching Assistant at Université Libre de Bruxelles. Her research focuses mainly on gender and mundane forms of activism, as well as social theory. She has written on gender and family norms in family migration policies in an upcoming edited book (Rutgers University Press) and will publish a book on academic activism in education, institutionalism and actor-network theory (Palgrave Macmillan).

Friday 6 December 2019, 14:00 – 15:30; Paddenhoek 1, 9000 Ghent

The Middle East and North Africa Research Group (MENARG) from the department of Conflict and Development Studies is hosting an event with Houria Bouteldja on the ‘struggle of decolonization in France’ in collaboration with TAPAS, the Centre for Research on Culture and Gender, the Governance in Conflict network (GICn) and the Ghent Centre for Global Studies.

Houria Bouteldja is a French-Algerian political activist and writer. She will speak on anti-racism, anti-imperialism, islamophobia and decolonisation.

Friday 13 december 2019, 18:00 – 20:00 | Aula UGent, Volderstraat 9, 9000 Gent

On March 18th-20th 2020, UCSIA organizes an academic workshop on gender, conflict, citizenship and belonging at the University of Antwerp.

Gender and gender(ed) relations have long been the subject of political imagination and interpretation. This is particularly the case in times of crisis and perceived threats to the nation, when political actors seek to mobilise through a (renewed) emphasis on the importance of the nuclear family and traditional roles for both women and men.

This workshop seeks to better understand the current political climate in Europe, which includes the resurfacing debates on abortion, the spread of referenda on the family across Europe, the various discussions in European countries on the re-introduction of military service, as well as the activities of anti-gender movements that have attempted to curtail academic freedom in researching gender and sexuality. To do so, it examines the role of (ideological) constructions of ideal and normative masculinities/femininities and alternatives to them in times of crisis, which remain too often overlooked by researchers.

deadline for submission: 25 November 2019

More information: https://ucsia.org/home-en/themes/europe-solidarity/events/gender-conflict-citizenship-and-belonging/