For attendance, please register at: secr.wijs-fgw <secr.wijs-fgw@uva.nl>. 

Conceptual Borrowing, Group Positioning and the Making of a New Human Being

Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach, VU Amsterdam

Methodological work on cross-cultural philosophical inquiry has witnessed stark shifts in the last few decades. What until recently was considered to be a disinterested philosophical study of the ‘non-western other,’ faces the charge today that it reproduces both, patterns of epistemic injustice and resource extractivism that have been in play since European imperialism and colonialism. My talk will revisit the transnational work of WEB Du Bois to bring into the conversation one pathway to avoid those pitfalls. I will in this regard sketch Du Bois’s borrowing of concepts from Indic sources, his vision of an interracial solidarity and an understanding of an alternative humanity.

Bio

Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach currently holds the chair ‘Diversifying Philosophy’ at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is the founding co-editor and current chief editor of the Journal of World Philosophies, the Bloomsbury Introductions to World Philosophies, as also the Bloomsbury Studies in World Philosophies. Her current work focuses on  critical social epistemology and diversifying Indic philosophies. In the past, she has worked on the ethics of immigration and multiculturalism.