News Releases

The UWI launches a Transnational Consortium Agreement on Critical Thinking from the Global South

For Release Upon Receipt - May 21, 2019

UWI


In November 2018, The University of the West Indies (The UWI) signed a Consortium Agreement entitled “Other Universals: Theorizing from Postcolonial Locations on Politics and Aesthetics” with the University of the Western Cape, the University of Cape Town, and the American University of Beirut. The Other Universals Consortium is engaged in anti-imperial political and cultural thought and internationalist intellectual traditions and practices of solidarity that have emerged from locations marked by the struggle to refuse subordination and negation as embodied in blackness, orientalism, untouchability and non-normative sexualities in the 19th and 20th century Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East, South Asia and Latin America. Critical work on this project commenced in 2016 with the convening of a group of scholars based at universities in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. In December 2017, the group received a grant of US $1.1 million from the Mellon Foundation towards their work.

Over the five-year period 2018–2022, the work of Other Universals Consortium will include the hosting of conferences and symposia, graduate summer schools, and fellowships for Faculty and Scholarships for research students at the convening universities. A critical component of the Other Universals Consortium is a rejuvenation and extension of Global South intellectual traditions of criticism in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The principal investigator and leader of this project at The UWI is Dr. Aaron Kamugisha, Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies who is based at the Cave Hill Campus. Dr. Kamugisha’s research focus is the social and political thought of the Caribbean and African diaspora. He has published six books and numerous articles in that field.

Commenting on the initiative, Vice-Chancellor of The UWI, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles noted the “timely and pertinent nature of the project that will resonate with scholars of postcolonial studies globally.” The UWI, he affirmed, “is seeking to deepen its global discursive engagement and is proud of the scholastic contribution of its young intellectuals like Dr. Kamugisha.” Dr. Kamugisha stated that, “…this agreement will put students and scholars at The UWI in conversation with their peers conducting research on anti-colonial traditions throughout the Global South, and I particularly expect the graduate summer schools to result in sustained engagements between the Caribbean, Africa and the Near East with deep resonances for the future of intellectual criticism in the region.”

Prospective and continuing doctoral students are encouraged to look out for the first call for PhD scholarships from the Consortium, which will be advertised shortly.

For more information, please contact Dr. Aaron Kamugisha at aaron.kamugisha@cavehill.uwi.edu. 

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