Nordic Research School in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies (www.norsgender.org)
PhD course
Postcolonial feminist theories and analytical approaches

Date:
September 30 - October 2, 2008

Deadline for application: August 15, 2008

Venue: Roskilde University, Denmark

Teachers: Prof. Meyda Yegenoglu, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, and Columbia University, New York Dr. Diana Mulinari, Lund University, Sweden Assoc. Prof. Signe Arnfred, The Nordic Africa Institute, Sweden; Roskilde
University, Denmark Assoc. Prof. Bodil Folke Frederiksen, Roskilde University, Denmark

Course description:
Over the last few decades postcolonial feminist theorizing has contributed
decisively to feminist thinking, critically pointing to the implicit and
invisible whiteness of Western feminisms.

Postcolonial feminists have illuminated the complex and fractured ways in
which the doings of gender and sexuality are at the core of nationalisms,
colonialisms and racisms, and central to politics of war and militarization.

From postcolonial feminist positions new questions have been raised, for
instance regarding foundational feminist concepts like 'women', 'gender' and the male/female duality. To which extent are such concepts universally applicable, to which extent do they actually hide as much as they reveal?
Postcolonial feminist theorizing invites to a thorough re-thinking of well-known conceptualizations. By de- centering the center (as put in the title of a volume edited by Sandra Harding and Uma Narayan) postcolonial feminist thinking offers a series of new vantage points from where to see and grasp the world, including one self and immediate surroundings. Being inspired by feminist standpoint theory as well as by post-structuralism, strands of post-colonial feminist thinking merge the two in new and unexpected ways.

The course will introduce and explore different lines of postcolonial feminist thinking in cross-disciplinary contexts - from sociology and anthropology to cultural and development studies - applied to a diversity of empirical fields, such as dressing and other bodily practices, sexuality and motherhood, gendered racisms, European identities and processes of globalization.

Programme and literature: www.norsgender.org/main.asp?page=course_programme&mode=single&id=24

Grants
16 PhD students can be funded by NorFA/NordForsk.
4 more PhD students are welcome to participate on a self-paying basis.
If the number of applicants, qualifying for the NorFA grants exceeds 16, a
selection will be made to ensure a spread of nationalities, institutions and
disciplines.

Applications
Applications (in English) should be mailed no later than August 15, 2008, to
academic coordinator Mette Bryld: mbry@galnet.dk

See www.norsgender.org/main.asp?page=application for information on application.