Lecture | Global Histories of Knowledge Seminar
When History Repeats Itself: Knowledge in Times of Crisis
- Date
- Friday 28 March 2025
- Time
- Series
- Global Histories of Knowledge 2024 - 2025
- Location
-
Johan Huizinga
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden - Room
- 2.60
Abstract
We are currently faced with a myriad of crises - wars, humanitarian catastrophes in Gaza, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Yemen, Haiti, impending pandemics, the triple planetary crisis (climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss), food insecurity, political instability and the rise of right-wing politics in Europe. Given our rapid technological advances from atomic energy to artificial intelligence, we would seem well positioned to respond to and eradicate these threats to humanity, yet we’re failing. From a decolonial, black studies and abolitionist approach I will attempt to address these failings and the life-affirming lessons they hold. The main argument will center on the role of knowledge, research and academia in times of crisis, with a particular focus on methods and end with what our responsibility is, as researchers, to future generations.
Speaker
Dr Zuleika Bibi Sheik is a South African poet and scholar of South Indian indentured descent. She is currently Assistant Professor of Decolonial Approaches, Gender and Black Studies at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Her particular interest is in ‘decolonizing methodologies’, considering the ‘how’ of doing research that is non-extractive, life-affirming and aimed towards social justice and collective liberation. Sheik was awarded her PhD cum laude, for her thesis, Liminagraphy: Lessons in Life-affirming Research Practices for Collective Liberation. Her academic series of essays on Decolonizing the Self has featured in the journal Education as Change and Imbiza Journal for African Writing. Her latest poem ‘Senzenina, what have we done?’ is featured on ‘Planting the seeds of Collective Liberation’ (2024) the inaugural issue of OneStateCollective that brings together creatives and activists united for a Free Palestine.
