We will discuss his chapter titled ‘Seeing the Old in the New: The Coloniality of the Liberal–Populist Marriage’. This chapter was published in the book Religion, Modernity and the Global Afterlives of Colonialism in 2025. Please find it attached to this message. First comments will be given by Matthea Westerduin, and there will be ample time for discussion. All welcome !

Brief Speaker Bio’s

Santiago Slabodsky is a sociologist of knowledge who holds the Florence and Robert Kaufman Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies and directs the interdisciplinary Jewish Studies (JWST) program in the Department of Religion at Hofstra University. Dr. Slabodsky’s research, mentorship, and teaching have earned him numerous accolades, including the Frantz Fanon Outstanding Book Award from the Caribbean Philosophical Association for his book Decolonial Judaism: Triumphal Failures of Barbaric Thinking. Currently, he serves as founding co-director of the journal Decolonial Horizons in South America, associate editor of the journal ReOrient in the UK, and co-chair of the Religions, Social Conflict, and Peace Studies unit at the American Academy of Religion.

Matthea Westerduin studied intellectual, political, cultural, and religious histories (Utrecht University and Tilburg University, cum laude). She defended her dissertation (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, cum laude) on (dis)continuities between Westernized Christian coloniality and secular and modern coloniality. In her forthcoming book (to appear at Routledge) Westerduin reconceptualizes ‘Christian supersessionism’ to make tangible these continuities. Her poetic and visual work focuses on how violence and abuse become hidden and unarticulable. The image below was made by Matthea.