Re-Worlding Lecture and seminar: Rolando Vazquez Melken en Stephanie Koziej

Lecture Rolando Vazquez Melken: Conversation on Decolonial Aesthesis

In this talk we will introduce the notion of Decolonial Aesthesis. First we will look at the major premises of Decolonial thought as developed within the Modernity/Coloniality network. Then we will show how decolonial aesthesis brings to question the aesthetics of the west, not only as art practice but as a form of control over everyday life experience.  Finally we will explain the way in which decolonial aesthesis works against the grain of the colonial difference and challenges the metaphysics of modernity and its dominant ways of worlding the world.

Rolando Vázquez is a teacher and decolonial thinker. Vázquez is currently Associate Professor of Sociology at the University College Utrecht. He co-directs with Walter Mignolo the annual Maria Lugones Decolonial Summer School. His most recent publication is "Vistas of Modernity: Decolonial aesthesis and the End of the Contemporary" (Mondriaan Fund 2020). 

• Timing lecture: 12h-13h40
• Open to all

Lecture & seminar Stephanie Koziej: The Critical Potential of Art 

This lecture will give a brief introduction into the field of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. It will focus on a handful of critical tools, like Simone de Beauvoir’s notion of gender as a social construct, Crenshaw’s method of intersectionality and José Muñoz’ concept of queer disidentification. Doing so, this lecture will illustrate how the field evolved from matters of gender alone, to incorporate race and sex issues as well. Throughout the talk, one will be able to take a closer look at how artists have incorporated these critical tools into their art practice, from spoken word to music videos and performance art. The aim of this lecture is for listeners to walk away with a toolbox full of critical tools, in order to tackle discriminatory gender, sex and race ideologies in their own research and/or art practice.

Stephanie Koziej is a researcher, teachers, artist and tender activist. Currently, she is a researcher at LUCA School of Arts’ Inter-Actions Research Unit. She holds a PhD in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies from Emory University (US) and an MPhil in Philosophy from the KU Leuven (BE). Her interdisciplinary work engages with feminist, queer and decolonial thinkers, and is located on the intersection between the humanities, art, technology and science. Across different scholarly and artistic modalities – from writing, to singing, interactive installations and EEG bio-feedback art – her body of work aims to shift the focus from autonomous and self-sufficient individuality to the tender inter-subjective relationships between and beyond us. Her work can be found on her website koziejstephanie.com.

• Timing: 14h-16h
• Open to PhD student of all organizing partners