Decolonizing the Humanities Project

The Decoloning Humanities Project (DH) at W&M provides a forum “to learn from, interact with, and collaborate with academics, artist, musicians, performers, journalists, intellectuals, activists, public figures and community organizers.” In close collaboration with colleagues from Modern Languages and Literatures and the department’s Bellini Lectures, the DH Project celebrated various events this semester.

These included faculty discussions with Professor Stephen Sheehi (DH Faculty Director, Arabic Studies), an invited lecture with the distinguished Professor of Philosophy Linda Alcoff (Hunter College & The Graduate Center), and a poetry event. The poetry event, moderated by Professor Emily Wilcox (Chinese Studies), featured international poets Juana Iris Goergen and Azad Ashim Sharma. An additional poet, Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, performed a collaborative bilingual reading together with Professor Silvia Tandeciarz (Hispanic Studies). The DH project/Bellini Lectures brought together faculty from various departments in the Arts & Sciences, graduate and undergraduate students, and alums, in order to rethink the structures of settler colonialism.

Image: America can (We) be Born Again (2014) by Diógenes Ballester. Image courtesy of the artist.