The Managers, in association with Polity, fund a biennial series of 3-4 lectures offered by a distinguished practitioner, which address topics of interest in Commonwealth Studies. The series aims to extend and rethink the postcolonial in a number of ways: by cirtically following new theoretical iterations, by extending its applications beyond the south and by revisiting the archive of the commonwealth, by elaborating a new ecumene for global dialogue and comparison, by revisiting the history of ideas for the global present. The fixed point is the critical advancement of post-colonial thinking and its applications, north and south.
A book series is drawn from these lectures and is published by Polity under the title 'After the Postcolonial'.
The lectures are organised in conjunction with a department or faculty in such a way as to be integrated into that institution's own teaching plans.
Previous Lectures
If needs be: South Africa's freedom struggles and the cult of death, Professor Jacob Dlamini (Princeton) October 2022
In October 2022 Professor Jacob Dlamini delivered three lectures on the following themes which will shortly be available to view online.
Lecture 1: Dying for Freedom
Lecture 2: Defying death
Lecture 3: A dignified corpse
Slum Acts in Three Scenes, Professor Veena Das (Johns Hopkins) October 2019
In October 2019 Professor Veena Das delivered three lectures which are available for viewing using the following links:
Lecture 1: Inordinate Knowledge and Self Making
Lecture 2: The Dispersed Body of the Police: Cascading Scales
Lecture 3: Detecting the Human: Under Which Skies Do We Theorize?
The Uninhabitable: Afterlives of the Urban South, AbdouMaliq Simone (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity) November 2017
In November 2017 the inaugural After the Postcolonial Lecture Series was hosted by the Smuts Memorial Fund in association with Polity. AbdouMaliq Simone (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity) delivered three lectures titled The Uninhabitable: Afterlives of the Urban South.
These lectures are available for viewing using the following links:
Lecture 1: Ensembles of the Uninhabitable
Lecture 2: Looking out for the Dark: Navigating contemporary complexities in Jakarta and Hyderabad
Lecture 3: On the Way Home without a World – the Case of Delhi
