Open Call – Reading Circle: Sylvia Wynter

This monthly reading circle explores an in-depth reading of the essay ‘Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation – An Argument’ by Jamaican novelist, dramatist, critic, philosopher, and essayist, Sylvia Wynter.

The essay charts a genealogy of the European conception of the human from its early days as a Christian subject to the emergence of the premodern political subject during the Renaissance, followed by the Enlightenment’s liberal subject that underpins the concepts of Western humanity and personhood today. The circle engages with Wynter’s concepts and constellation of references, addressing her proposals to rehabilitate the human by thinking it through genres. It explores how her proposal relates with anticolonial struggles in the 1960s and how the conceptual frame of power, truth and freedom might help us understand the rationalities of imperial projects, of colonialism and their contemporary legacy in racist supremacy ideologies.

The reading circle invites active participation. It is convened by political theorist Gulshan Khan (University of Nottingham) and Nottingham Contemporary curator Sofia Lemos. To sign up please submit an expression of interest (150 words) to ncpublicprogramme@nottinghamcontemporary.org by 12 February 2021. The reading circle is open to all. We particularly welcome applications from across disciplinary fields and from beyond the academy.

Reading
Sylvia Wynter, ‘Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation – An Argument’, The New Centennial Review 3, no.3 (2003): 257-337.

About the event

Online. Free. Limited Capacity.
To sign up please submit an expression of interest.
A copy of the reading will be available on registration.
You can access this event through the Zoom meeting link available on booking.
There will be automated live captioning for this event.
A transcription for this event is not available afterwards due to the intimate nature of the event.
We are unable to provide British Sign Language interpretation for this event.
The duration of the event is one and a half hours. A rest break is not included.

Following sessions: Wed 17 Mar, 21 Apr, 19 May.