Call for Contributions

POSTGRADUATE COLLOQUIUM:

‘Post’-Violence Subjectivities in the Global South 

Venue: Stellenbosch University
9-10 September 2025

DEADLINE: 8 August 2025

The Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest (AVReQ) invites contributions for our 2025 Postgraduate Colloquium, hosted at Stellenbosch University. The colloquium is themed around post-violence subjectivities in the Global South and the afterlives of violence in this context. We envisage the colloquium to be an inter-university event aimed at engagement between postgraduate students from universities in the Western Cape, including Stellenbosch University (SU), the University of Cape Town (UCT), the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). Thus, postgraduate students whose work engage with the above theme and who are currently registered students at one of the named institutions are encouraged to submit an abstract (submission details included below). Please note that this will be an in-person colloquium only.

We welcome presentations in a wide range of formats, including:

  • papers (15 minutes presentation + 10 minutes Q&A)
  • panels (2-3 presenters, 30 minutes presentation + 15 minutes Q&A)
  • poster presentations (5 minutes + 5 minutes Q&A)
  • arts-based research submissions like performances, demonstrations, short film screenings, etc., (10-15 minutes + 10 minutes Q&A) or exhibitions

Colloquium Theme: ‘Post’-Violence Subjectivities in the Global South

This colloquium emerges from the current research initiatives of postgraduate scholars affiliated with AVReQ, grounded in the Centre’s broader commitment to the objectives of the South African Research Chair in Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma. It is envisioned as an interdisciplinary and intersectional platform for critical engagement with the enduring impacts of socio-historical violence and its manifestations in contemporary contexts. Anchored in a deep interrogation of transgenerational trauma, the colloquium seeks to foster dialogue that transcends disciplinary boundaries, inviting reflections on the ways in which inherited traumas continue to shape lived experiences, memory, and identity. Through this convening, we aim to pose and pursue critical questions around how we bear witness to the continuities of violence, how they are embodied and narrated, and what it means to engage with these legacies in both scholarly and praxis-based ways. The colloquium invites contributions that consider the intersections of history, memory, affect, and justice in addressing the ongoing reverberations of violence across generations.

We seek to engage provocations including but not limited to the following:

  • Temporal transversality, or the ‘unearthed’ stories of bodily grievances and the need for accountability in the contemporary
  • The transgenerationality of violences with a particular focus on gendered experiences
  • Ghostly presence/s: Colonial geographies and historical traumas embedded in the continuities of racialisation of spaces
  • The mind and/or body as a space/place of ruptures and archiving of trauma/histories of trauma
  • Beyond pathologizing constructions of subjectivities towards humanising and healing

Abstract Submission

All abstracts must be submitted online via the following link: Click Here

Please prepare the following for inclusion in your submission:

  • title of presentation
  • an abstract or summary of your presentation (not exceeding 300 words)
  • biographical note/s of presenter/s (not exceeding 100 words), including your level of study (Master’s/PhD). Honours-level candidates are allowed to apply, but preference will be given to Master’s and PhD candidates.
  • e-mail address and phone number of the presenter/s

Please read through the above guidelines carefully. Abstracts that do not adhere to these guidelines will not be considered. No late submissions will be considered.

Queries may be sent to avreqinfo@sun.ac.za. The selection committee expects to contact all applicants with a final decision by 18 August 2025.