Summer School in Global Studies and Critical Theory
 

GLOBAL HUMANITIES AND THE GLOBAL SOUTH
HISTORY, POLITICS, AND CRITICAL THEORY

Bologna • June 27 – July 8, 2016

The 2016 Summer school in Global studies and critical theory focused on the historical dimension of the multiple “global souths” and their political and intellectual roots and discussed the contribute of the current debate on the global south to the methodological, conceptual and historical aspects of a global humanities project. Classes, seminars, public meetings and debates drew their energy from the critical contributions of the Global South studies, but also attempted to single out the traps of reification and ethnocentrism entailed in the very notion of a Global South. Teaching and research programs on global humanities have been criticized by postcolonial studies in the last decades because of their Eurocentric background. Against these Eurocentric narratives and conceptual framework, the notion of the global south has stood out as a political and scientific alternative. Although the idea of a Global South has found a relatively recent popularization within academia, it is rooted in long-standing intellectual, political and institutional traditions.