01.10.2026 Postcolonial Hierarchies Think Lab
For the Postcolonial Hierarchies project’s second phase, we explore utopia and future-making from a variety of conceptual, empirical, and methodological perspectives within our bi-annual Think Lab. Across three days, we examine how alternative futures are imagined and enacted in contexts shaped by colonial legacies and contemporary inequalities.
Think Lab: Open Events
Keynote 1
Speaker: Dr. Anya Heise-von der Lippe: Contested Utopia(s) in African Afrofuturism: Wanuri Kahiu's "Pumzi"
📅 Monday, October 5th
⏰ 14:00-15:30
📍 Room 101, Pilgrimstein 12, Marburg
Registration: tareq.sydiq@uni-marburg.de
About the Lecture:
This talk will use Wanuri Kahiu's short film "Pumzi" as a jumping off point for a wider discussion of Afrofuturism and its exploration of possible futures which push against Utopian/Dystopian projects originating in the Global North. It will explore these Afrofuturist counter-narratives along emerging dimensions such as dreams and care, paying attention to the ways in which Afrofuturist approaches move beyond an anthropocentric focus upheld by the ongoing legacies of colonial epistemological systems of control and neoliberal narratives of inevitability.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Anya Heise-von der Lippe teaches English Literatures and Cultures at the University of Tübingen. Publications include Monstrous Textualities and Writing Romantic Climate Change, as well as a special issue of Digital Culture & Society on "Global Tech Futures", co-edited with Jascha Bareis and Felix Spremberg. Her most recent research project focuses on the intersections of Environmental Humanities and Critical Disability Studies. She is currently co-editing the Cambridge Companion to Monsters with Fred Botting as well as a volume on Afrobecomings with her colleague Louis Nana from Tübingen.
Keynote 2
Speaker: Dr. Antje Daniel: Confronting the Coloniality of Time through Afrotopias
📅 Wednesday, October 7th
⏰ 18:15-19:45
📍Raum 101, Pilgrimstein 12, 35037 Marburg
About the Lecture:
Worldwide, we are witnessing a constant production of utopic registers of the future as part of struggles for reexistence and reworlding. However, African utopias have been neglected and overshadowed by Euro-American utopian studies. Through an analysis of lived utopia in South Africa, Antje Daniel's research challenges the coloniality of time in two ways: first, by unpacking the Westernisation of the utopian studies canon and providing insight into the broad production of Afrotopias as utopian registers; and second, by examining lived utopias in South Africa to demonstrate that utopia is not solely fictional, but also a real-world phenomenon evident in the practices of social movements.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Antje Daniel is a senior researcher at the University of Vienna, specialising in academic studies on utopia/future, political sociology, the environment, youth and intersectionality/gender. She is leading a research project entitled "Youth Activism and Fridays for Future: An Intersectional and Global Perspective," with case studies in Uganda, Austria, and Bangladesh, as well as a project on the EU Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (CSDDD) and its impact on civil society in Uganda.
Book Talk
“NOWHERE, NO-PLACE, AND A WORLD WITHOUT BORDERS. THE COLONIAL LEGACY OF UTOPIA AND ITS LIMITATIONS IN RESEARCHING FUTURES”
📅 Monday, October 5th
⏰ 18:15-19:45
📍Room 101, Pilgrimstein 12, Marburg
About the Lecture:
Lea Ebeling reads from her ethnographic novel 'Hoffen, wenn die Welt schmerzt. Ein ethnografischer Comic über dekoloniale und anti-kapitalistische Zukünfte [ENG: Hope in times of World-Weariness. An Ethnographic Novel on Decolonial and Anti-Capitalist Future Imaginaries]‘ and discusses obstacles and potentials of imagining better futures in activist practice as a form of resistance against capitalist realism and Western epistemologies of progress.
About the Speaker:
Lea Ebeling’s work is situated at the intersection of artistic practice, ethnographic research methods and social sciences. Drawing on her background in social anthropology, she engages with established hierarchies of knowledge and approaches socio-political issues with attention to their complexity, plurality and diverse perspectives. Her (ethno)graphic novel brings together decolonial and anti-capitalist imaginaries of the future developed in conversation with activists from different fields of struggle. It explores drawing as a critical and collaborative method of research.
Think Lab
All events are part of the Think Lab “Contesting Hierarchies: Utopia and Future-Making in a Postcolonial World”, taking place at Philipps University Marburg from 5–8.10.2026. The Think Lab places utopia, contestation and alternative futures at the centre of discussions about postcolonial hierarchies, asking how existing orders are challenged and how visions of different futures are imagined and created.
For the Postcolonial Hierarchies project’s second phase, we explore utopia and future-making from a variety of conceptual, empirical, and methodological perspectives within our bi-annual Think Lab. Across three days, we examine how alternative futures are imagined and enacted in contexts shaped by colonial legacies and contemporary inequalities.
Kontakt
Sophie Falschebner