Twenty Years On: Gender Studies, Critical Philosophy of Race, and the State of Race in the Dutch Academy

Twenty Years On: Gender Studies, Critical Philosophy of Race, and the State of Race in the Dutch Academy 

Organised by the Radboud Gender & Diversity Studies in partnership with

The Netherlands Research School of Gender Studies,

NWO Race in Academia Project and Dutch Research School of Philosophy.

In 2006, Philomena Essed and Kwame Nimako published "Designs and Coincidence: Cultures of Scholarship and Public Policy on Immigrants/Minorities in the Netherlands," a landmark article that traced four decades of Dutch discourse, policy, and research on race, ethnicity, and immigration. Twenty years later, much has changed, and sadly much has not. Scholars at Radboud University, together with NACRA (https://thenacra.nl/) and partner organizations, have been taking stock of what has happened in Dutch academic spaces since that intervention.

This seminar brings together the strands of critical race theory and critical philosophy of race and gender studies in particular as they have developed in the Netherlands over the past two decades. Our aim is threefold: to share and consolidate the knowledge that has been produced, so that each generation of scholars does not have to start over; to reflect on how these fields have shaped, and been shaped by, Dutch public debate; and to strategize on how this scholarship can continue to dismantle racism in all academic spaces.

We are honoured to welcome Josias Tembo as our speaker, with responses from Garjan Sterk and Anya Topolski, whose combined perspectives will help bridge past scholarship and future directions.

For those who do not know this research, we ask you to please read this article as preparation for this seminar.

Essed, P., & Nimako, K. (2006). Designs and (Co)Incidents: Cultures of Scholarship and Public Policy on Immigrants/Minorities in the Netherlands: Cultures of Scholarship and Public Policy on Immigrants/Minorities in the Netherlands. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 47(3-4), 281-312. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020715206065784

Speakers:

Josias Tembo is a critical philosopher of race and racism working at the HAN University of Applied Sciences and the University of Antwerp. His research intersects themes such as race and religion, social and political subjectivity, and African social and political thought and practice. Josias is a co-chair of the Netherlands Association of Critical Race and Antiracism. He is also a member of the Race-Religion Research Network and a member of the Race, Religion, and Secularism Network.  

Garjan Sterk is the educational coordinator for Gender & Diversity. In her own time, she is an external PhD, investigating the position and contributions of Dutch Black women to Gender Studies the Netherlands, and the consequences for the body of knowledge that has been produced in Gender Studies institutions. 

Berna Toprak is a Sociologist and a Critical Muslim Studies scholar who studies the making of white innocence and the configuration of the “Muslim Question” in the Dutch context. Her PhD is embedded within the “EnGendering Europe’s Muslim Question” at the University of Amsterdam and headed by prof. dr. Sarah Bracke. Berna is also a community organizer and activist whose praxis is rooted in an Islamic liberation theology.

Anya Topolski is an associate professor in philosophy at Radboud University specialised in Critical Philosophy of Race. https://racereligionresearch.org