CLIC is pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the workshop "Postmigration Beyond National Borders," organised by the Platform for Postcolonial Readings at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and Leiden University. The workshop will take place on 9 October 2025 at VUB and online.
Abstracts and registration details should be sent to Anna-Lena Eick (aeick@uni-mainz.de), Janine Hauthal (janine.hauthal@vub.be), and Isabella Villanova (isabella.villanova@vub.be) by 20 September 2025.
Theme and Scope
The term ‘postmigrant’ (Schramm et al. 2019; Foroutan 2019; Yıldız 2021; Römhild 2021) has gained significant traction in the humanities and is used to describe societies shaped by ongoing migration and cultural transformation. The postmigrant paradigm was coined by Shermin Langhoff in the artistic-activist context of theatre to describe and empower the plural realities and lived experiences of second- and third-generation individuals in Germany (Sharifi 2018, 2019). Concurrently, the term has also been applied more broadly and in different cultural and societal contexts (Geiser 2016; Moslund 2019; Steward 2021; Coste & Kopf 2025). In establishing postmigration as a lens for ‘societal analysis’ (Yıldız 2014: 22), however, it is important to reflect on its conceptual reach and adaptability to diverse sociohistorical and cultural landscapes, along with its relation to the postcolonial paradigm. The Platform meeting will explore how, for example, the colonial past and the ongoing reckoning with its reverberations in different countries across the globe inform the possibility of articulating the notion of a ‘postmigrant society’. In so doing, we will critically assess the postmigrant potential and limitations for analysing literature and other artistic media from diverse cultural and national backgrounds.
The meeting will feature a keynote by Azadeh Sharifi (FU Berlin) and include the joint discussion of seminal texts by leading scholars. Wishing to critically engage with the concept of ‘postmigrant’, its theoretical foundations, and its applicability to various transnational contexts, we will address questions including, but not limited to, the following:
- How do colonial histories shape literary and cultural reflections on (post)migration and belonging?
- What are the potential (methodological) pitfalls of transferring the postmigrant concept to various disciplinary and socio-cultural contexts?
- How do postmigration studies relate to postcolonial studies, critical race studies, and gender studies?
- What are the implications of the postmigrant paradigm for literary and cultural studies?
By addressing these questions, the meeting aims to deepen understanding of postmigrant perspectives in literary and cultural studies, encourage critical reflection on their links to postcolonial thinking, and explore their relevance to the analysis of contemporary literature and culture across borders.
Practical Info
The meeting is open to all researchers working in the fields of literary, cultural, postcolonial, transcultural, and globalization studies. Participation is free of charge, but registration is mandatory. Junior researchers (doctoral students/research masters) who wish to present their work are invited to submit a 50-word biography and a 200-word abstract detailing their research-in-progress and outlining its relevance to the meeting’s central theme. Abstracts and registration details should be sent to Anna-Lena Eick (aeick@uni-mainz.de), Janine Hauthal (janine.hauthal@vub.be), and Isabella Villanova (isabella.villanova@vub.be) by 20 September 2025.
The Platform for Postcolonial Readings organizes seminars for (junior) researchers in the Netherlands and Belgium who are committed to issues of postcoloniality and globalization. This meeting is organized with the support of VUB’s Doctoral School of Human Sciences by guest-organizers Anna-Lena Eick (U Mainz), Janine Hauthal (VUB), and Isabella Villanova (VUB) in collaboration with platform coordinators Elisabeth Bekers (VUB) and Liesbeth Minnaard (UL).
