All meetings are Monday at 15:00 on Teams: Monday 9 October 2023, 15:00; Monday 30 October 2023, 15:00; Monday 13 November, 2023; Monday 15 January 2024, 15:00; Monday 15 February 2024, 15:00; Monday 4 March 2024, 15:00

First session/planning meeting: Monday 9 October, 2023

What does Decolonise mean in universities in 2023?

As Chair of the Arts Faculty’s Equality and Inclusion Forum, I’d like to invite all students and university to the first meeting of a new Staff/Student Decolonise Group, which is kicking off on Monday the 9 October at 15:00 (Teams).

This group is an opportunity for all staff and students to think and read together around a transformative topic in universities. Our meetings expand a group first convened in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies between 2020 and 2022; and parallel a group already convened in Social Sciences. We invite any and all students interested in the wider conversation around Decolonisation, particularly as the term continues to evolve and shift in 2023 and 2024. Staff and students are invited to curate their own research, reading, or interests, in whatever form these may take–whether creative projects, academic or nonacademic writing, talks from invited speakers, and so on forward. Each week’s discussions will be curated by a staff member and a student; to get the ball rolling, Michael Meeuwis (ECLS) will convene our first sessions.

We propose in the first instance to meet three times in autumn and winter terms. At the end of the year, a two-hour hybrid collective writing event will create a summative statement of our experiences this year and our expectations moving forward.

Autumn term:

1. First meeting, Monday 9 October: goal-setting, planning
   Decolonising Education: What is going on at Warwick?, https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/decolonisingss/warwick_initiatives_on_decolonising_education_and_related.pdf
2. Second meeting, Monday 30 October
   Curator: Michael Meeuwis, “Woke Austen”
   Reading: Walter Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh, “Introduction,” from On Decoloniality
3. Third meeting, Monday 13 November
   Two essays by Abdulrazak Gurnah: https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/essay/writing-place-abdulrazak-gurnah and https://lucas.leeds.ac.uk/article/an-idea-of-the-past-abdulrazak-gurnah/
   Also please attend Prof. Gurnah's lecture, Wednesday 15 November at 5pm in FAB0.03. Registration required, see here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/research/edwardsaid/

Winter term:

1. First meeting, week three, Monday 22 January
   Paul Gilroy, "The Crisis of Race and Raceology," from Between Camps
2. Second meeting, week five, Monday 5 February
   Curator: Ryan Arthur
3. Third meeting, week eight, Monday 26 February
   Curator: Maryam Khonat

Summer term:

Wednesday, May 8: Two-hour hybrid collective writing event: write a statement about Decolonize at Warwick in 2024