De staartpen van de vuurvogel

This afternoon event is part of the Festival of Equality and is a collaboration between deBuren and Studium Generale. Tickets are available via the Festival of Equality website from Tuesday 14/10. Students can attend free of charge by reserving a student ticket.

Sita Mohabir, Sofie Avery, and Elly Van Eeghem will examine the concept of safe(r) spaces in three mini-keynotes: are they limiting or liberating, and are they even possible?

Sita Mohabir examines how the intersections of disability, ethnicity, and gender determine who is included and who is excluded within organizations. Her keynote speech focuses on the question of what a ‘safe space’ can mean for groups that often have less opportunity to feel truly safe and heard. She discusses the conditions and pitfalls of creating such spaces. At the same time, she emphasizes that differences and inequality also exist within marginalized groups, where people can experience privileges as forms of exclusion at the same time — and she invites us to take a critical look at our own role in creating more inclusive spaces.

Sofie Avery takes aim at the university as a safe space. In recent years, our media have reported on testimonies of transgressive behavior and toxic leadership in the academic world, resulting in public outrage. In attempts to avoid damage to their image, universities repeatedly miss the mark. How can we bring about the necessary cultural change, and why is mandatory bystander training not enough?

Elly Van Eeghem examines how we experience the public spaces of the city where we live, work, pass through, and live as (un)safe. How do we deal with the difference between actual safety issues in the city and people's feelings of insecurity? She takes us to various cities where she has worked in recent years to build new places together with residents, thereby changing the image and perception of a square, street, bridge, park, or parking lot.

The discussion will be moderated by Anneleen Lemmens, coordinator of Engagement Arts, an organization dedicated to tackling sexism, abuse of power, and inappropriate behavior in the broader cultural sector.

• Sita Mohabir is passionate about sustainable systemic change, in which no one has to disappear in order to belong. Through her company Equitable Inclusion, she supports organizations in exposing and breaking through structural mechanisms of exclusion — at the intersection of ableism, racism, sexism, inaccessibility, and language. With accessible training courses, workshops, and policy advice, she makes it tangible how exclusion persists in systems, language, and daily practice, and encourages change based on knowledge, emotion, and collective responsibility. She combines strategic advice with experiential knowledge and makes room for perspectives that are often missing. Her interventions invite reflection, shift, and action — always with the question: Who decides? For whom is this space truly safe? Who is still being asked to adapt? And who is still missing?
• Sofie Avery is a philosopher, activist, and amateur sea dog. Sofie is particularly interested in power differences and the question of how institutions should deal with them. Sofie conducts research at the University of Antwerp and Ghent University on sexually transgressive behavior in academia. Sofie's first book, Over de Schreef: macht en grenzen aan de universiteit (Beyond the Line: Power and Boundaries at University), was published in February 2025 by Letterwerk.
• Elly Van Eeghem works as an artist exploring the meaning, design, and use of our urbanized environment. Her work consists of videos, photographs, texts, actions, and installations in public spaces. She creates both individual work and collective projects with other creators or residents of a neighborhood, city, or village. Her long-term project, (Dis)placed Interventions, was created during a city residency at Kunstencentrum VierNulVier and a doctorate in the arts at KASK & Conservatorium, where she teaches. This led to CAMPUSatelier, where Elly is creating various collective projects between 2021 and 2024.
• Anneleen Lemmens studied Literature and Theater Studies at the universities of Ghent and Antwerp and then followed the programme Drama – Directing at RITCS in Brussels. Since then, she has been primarily active as coordinator of Engagement Arts, an organization dedicated to tackling sexism, abuse of power, and inappropriate behavior in the broader cultural sector. In this context, Anneleen completed the programme to become a confidential advisor and immersed herself in prevention by giving lectures and workshops at art schools and institutions.

This lecture will be held in Dutch.

This lecture will take place in the Theaterzaal at Vooruit. Work is currently underway at Vooruit to improve accessibility. During the work, the elevator to the theater will remain accessible. The entrance to the festival will be moved to the concert hall, via Parijsberg. Enter the Parijsberg via Lammerstraat and walk the first part of the way to the loading and unloading area. There will also be signage here. Here you will find a notice from VIERNULVIER with the telephone number of the person in charge. (they/them) will come and collect you there with the elevator and take you to the level of the concert hall.

The hall is accessible to wheelchair users, accompanied by a VIERNULVIER employee. Wheelchair spaces are available in rows 1 and 17 of the stalls. There is an accessible toilet nearby. A live sign language interpreter will be provided for this lecture. If you have any further questions about accessibility facilities, please contact the organization: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be

What does it mean to guard your boundaries in a world where everything is constantly rubbing, pushing and pulling? How do you stay true to yourself when systems, people or desires force you in opposite directions?

In this essay for the Karakters series, author Sharvin Ramjan takes you on a journey through different cities and diverse themes to examine boundaries in cross-sexual identity friendships, open relationships and at work. Not a neutral view, but a lens shaped by intersections: of cultures and perspectives, of duties and privileges, of inner tension and external expectations. The tone is personal, essayistic and confrontational.

‘Sharvin Ramjan finds the right words to capture the spirit of the times and ask pertinent questions about our work culture, the complexity of contemporary relationships and the hypocrisy in the diversity debate. His disarming tone ensures that you always feel engaged as a reader.’

– Jozefien Meijer, media maker, writer and Talent Development Coordinator at deBuren

Nooit Genoeg (Never Enough) by Sharvin Ramjan is a publication in the series Karakters, pocket-sized essays on philosophy and cultural criticism. The Karakters are a collaboration between Studium Generale, Academia Press, deBuren and Rekto:Verso. During this book presentation, Sharvin will read from Nooit Genoeg. This will be followed by a conversation about boundaries in work and relationships with Kelia Kaniki Masengo and several artistic interventions. Afterwards, there will be time for a drink and you can purchase the book at the book stand.

• Sharvin Ramjan fulfils various roles in the Dutch cultural landscape. Through his presenting, moderating and writing, he questions the norms and values we take for granted. Sharvin strives for diversity, equal opportunities and greater representation of marginalised groups within the arts, culture and creative sectors and beyond.
• Kelia Kaniki Masengo writes, speaks and bounces through life. Her participation in the first edition of Nieuw Geluid, a talent development programme for high-profile voices organised by deBuren, gave Kelia the push she needed. Since then, she has devoted herself to hosting, writing fiction for young children and making jokes. In 2024, Kelia was selected for Get Up Stand Up, a programme for budding comedians organised by 'Nuff Said.

This lecture will be held in Dutch. 

Deze lezing zal plaatsvinden in de Kazematten. Het gehele gebouw is rolstoeltoegankelijk via een ruime lift. Voor deze lezing is een tolk gebarentaal voorzien. Wie verdere vragen heeft over de toegankelijkheidsvoorzieningen, kan contact opnemen met de organisatie: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be

In 1500, Woyeken Hagen voluntarily allowed herself to be kidnapped so that she could marry a man she had chosen herself. In 1601, Marin le Marcis was subjected to intimate physical examinations without her consent to determine whether she had male or female sexual characteristics. In 1889, Charlotte underwent the first unwanted caesarean section in Belgium.

Three people, three different times and circumstances. Their stories seem to have little in common. And yet there is one element that connects them: in each case, it revolves around the presence, or rather the absence, of consent.

Today, we mainly associate consent with sexual violence and #MeToo. But history shows that the struggle for control over one's own body is much older and more multifaceted. In “A forgotten history of consent”, historians Chanelle Delameillieure and Jolien Gijbels examine how people have navigated between coercion and free will throughout the centuries. How did marginalised groups manage to create space for their own choices? What forms of resistance, negotiation or silent protest were involved?

This lecture opens a window onto the surprising, often uncomfortable history of a concept that everyone is familiar with, but which remains difficult to define precisely. A look at the past makes it clear that people agreed to situations they did not actually want for various reasons, and that not everyone had the same amount of say. The lecture shows that consent can often be difficult to reduce to a simple yes or no and invites further reflection on the many shades of grey between coercion and freedom.

The lecture by Jolien Gijbels and Chanelle Delameillieure will be followed by a panel discussion with Douwe Haenen and moderator Anneleen Lemmens. In between, there will be an artistic intervention by Yousra Benfquih.

• Jolien Gijbels is a teacher in History at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She researches the history of medicine and gender in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She is currently co-editing a public book with Chanelle Delameillieure on consent from different historical perspectives.
• Chanelle Delameillieure is a teacher in medieval history at KU Leuven. Her research focuses on gender, family and crime history. She is the author of ‘Wijvenwereld’, a popular science book about women in the Middle Ages, and is co-authoring a book with Jolien Gijbels about consent in the past.
• Yousra Benfquih is a writer, poet and spoken word artist. In 2017, she won the txt-on-stage competition “Naft voor Woord” and was selected for the deBuren writing residency in Paris. Since then, Yousra has been a fixture on the Flemish stage, from Bozar to Roma, Arenberg to Theater aan Zee. Her written work can be read in Kluger Hans, DW B, De Poëziekrant, De Revisor and De Gids, among others. Yousra is one of the regular authors/house authors of Rekto:verso and teaches Spoken Word at LUCA School of Arts, Writing for Performance. She is currently working on her poetry collection.
• Anneleen Lemmens studied Literature and Theatre Studies at the universities of Ghent and Antwerp and then followed the programme Drama – Directing at the RITCS in Brussels. Since then, she has been primarily active as coordinator of Engagement Arts, an organisation dedicated to tackling sexism, abuse of power and inappropriate behaviour in the broader cultural sector. In this context, Anneleen completed the programme to become a confidential advisor and immersed herself in prevention by giving lectures and workshops at art schools and institutions.
• Douwe Haenen is a programme maker and heritage professional. During his studies at the Reinwardt Academy, he focused on ethical issues within the cultural sector. He has worked and advised for deBuren, the Bonnefantenmuseum, OSCAM and SHCL, among others. He currently works as a programme maker at Curieus, where Douwe continues to promote accessibility and participation in the cultural sector.

This lecture is held in Dutch

This evening is a collaboration between Studium Generale and deBuren. This lecture will take place in the MIRY Concert Hall. The hall is wheelchair accessible via a lift to the first floor. A sign language interpreter will be provided for this lecture. If you have any further questions about accessibility facilities, please contact the organisation: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be. Questions can be asked to the student assistant at the desk on site.

We are still living in colonial times. That old order has not disappeared, but has changed form. Behind our democratic, liberal façade lies a pecking order that still determines which lives count and which can be destroyed.

While our leaders undermine international law and remain complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people, the question arises: what does that do to us? What does it say about our society, our institutions?

Aimé Césaire wrote about how the dehumanisation that is accepted elsewhere inevitably returns to us. He called this the “colonial boomerang”. Writer and anthropologist Sinan Çankaya already sees this spiral of violence, for example in the ways in which freedom and security are discussed in Europe. Politicians in the Netherlands and Flanders repeatedly fuel fascist energies. In his lecture, Çankaya analyses the temptation of racial and sexual spectres in uncertain times.

How do you remain human when violence looms? How do we save democracy when its foundations are being eroded from within? And above all: are we prepared to pay the price of resistance?

After the lecture, Sinan Çankaya will be in conversation with journalist Samira Bendadi.

Previous communications stated that the title of the lecture would be “Guilt and shame as social wounds”, but the speaker has since changed the title and content to “The fascist boomerang: on violence, dehumanisation and the crisis of democracy”.

• Sinan Çankaya is an anthropologist and writer. He obtained his doctorate with a study on diversity within the Dutch police force and researched ethnic profiling in the Netherlands. He has written essays on identity and exclusion for De Correspondent. His book Mijn ontelbare identiteiten (My Countless Identities, 2023) was awarded the Jan Hanlo Essay Prize Groot, the Sociologische Bril (Sociological Perspective) and the E. du Perron Prize. His latest book, “Galmende geschiedenissen” (2025), is about who is allowed to speak and who is silenced, about which dead we remember and which stories we bury deeper. He wrote the introduction to the Dutch edition of Edward Said's Orientalism and is a university teacher at VU Amsterdam.
• Samira Bendadi is a journalist at MO* and has worked for both radio and television in the past. Her expertise lies mainly in the field of migration and citizenship. In addition to her focus on migration in Belgium, she has produced numerous reports in various countries in North Africa and the Middle East. In recent years, she has focused in particular on the situation in Libya and Sudan.
  
  Her journalistic work is always based on a human rights perspective. Whether it concerns in-depth reports, analytical contributions or interviews with writers and artists, both in Belgium and Europe or the Arab world, the political context and its impact on human rights are always central to her approach. Bendadi is the author of Dolle Amina’s. Feminisme in de Arabische Wereld (2008). In 2019, she was co-curator and co-author of the book Textiel in Verzet (Textiles in Resistance), a publication accompanying the exhibition of the same name on textiles, migration and resistance, commissioned by the Fashion Museum (MoMU).

This lecture will be in Dutch.

This lecture is part of the Dark Nights series at the GUM Forum. More information about accessibility can be found on their website. A sign language interpreter will be present for this lecture. If you have any further questions about accessibility facilities, please contact the organisers: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be. Questions can also be asked at the reception desk on site.

This lecture has been cancelled due to illness. 

In recent years, there has been no denying it: Taylor Swift is everywhere, including at university. But how far does her influence actually extend? In this lecture, we will take a closer look at the so-called Swiftian Turn in academia and how it challenges academic ideals of knowledge and expertise. The line between fan and researcher is blurring, and new types of knowledge are being produced. What does it mean for science when Taylor Swift enters our lecture halls and journals? And does the pop star also influence current politics and feminism?

After the lecture, Sigrid Wallaert will talk to researcher Barbara van Dijck.

• Sigrid Wallaert is a postdoctoral researcher in philosophy at Ghent University. Her research focuses on knowledge injustice, feminist anger, medical humanities, and sometimes Taylor Swift. Her first book, Kwaad spreken: Wie gelooft de boze vrouw?, was published by Letterwerk in 2023.
• Barbara Van Dyck is a political agroecologist and ecofeminist. She is currently affiliated with the Agroecology Lab at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. In her work as a researcher and activist, she focuses on the intertwining of technology, knowledge, power, and politics in agriculture. In this way, she aims to contribute to sharpening our collective imagination, to make room for practices in which care for vulnerable and finite life is paramount.

This lecture is held in Dutch

This lecture will take place in the MIRY Concert Hall. The hall is wheelchair accessible via a lift to the first floor. A sign language interpreter will be provided for this lecture. If you have any further questions about accessibility facilities, please contact the organisation: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be. Questions can be asked on site to the student assistant at the desk.

No body is so often commented on, standardised and controlled as that of women. Dress codes, beauty standards, abortion laws, headscarf bans,... What women wear, how they behave, how they look and what happens to their bodies has been the subject of debate, policy and political struggle for centuries everywhere. At the same time, women's bodies have remained a kind of medical mystery all this time. Against the obsessive urge to police women is a bewildering lack of knowledge and understanding of female anatomy, biology and physiognomy. This contradiction highlights that the personal is still political, a slogan of feminists from the 1960s and 1970s, which remains relevant today.

• Bieke Purnelle is co-director at Rosa vzw, knowledge centre for gender and feminism. She is a freelance writer and columnist for De Standaard, MO, et al.

This lecture will take place at MIRY Concert Hall. The hall is wheelchair accessible via a lift to the first floor. A sign language interpreter is provided for this lecture. Anyone with further questions about accessibility facilities should contact the organisation: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be. On site, questions can be put to the job student at the desk.

In the West, we commonly believe that the aversion to fatness is rooted in medical concerns, especially given the purported “obesity epidemic.” However, studies have shown that the aversion to fat bodies in the West precedes medical warnings about any presumed relationship between size and health. Further, research has long-established that the group most likely to be denigrated for being fat is Black women. In this presentation, Strings will show that contrary to popular beliefs, fatphobia is not rooted in health concerns. Rather, it arose as a mechanism to justify the booming enterprise of slavery through the degradation of Black people, and Black women in particular, as unrestrained in their “animal appetites.” Moreover, when the medical establishment elected to take up questions regarding the relationship between fat and health in the 20th century, physicians chose BMI as its proxy, a tool mired in colour-blind racism.

This event is a collaboration between Studium Generale and VIERNULVIER.

• Sabrina Strings is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. She previously held an appointment as a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Sociology and the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley.
• Philsan Osman is co-author of “For Whom We Want to Care: Ecofeminism as Inspiration” (EPA 2021). She is originally from Somalia and is a writer, activist and community builder.

In the summer of 2024, writer Louise Souvagie undertook a Six Week Crossfit Challenge. It provided an occasion to reflect on social engineering, heteronormativity in fitness culture and the inherent rebellion of the fat body. After all, isn't being fat and staying fat an act of rebellion in a world that tells us we are in control of our weight?

Fitness is imbued with an idea that we live in battle with our own bodies. When you win, you demonstrate your success with the combination of a successful before and after photo. But what if you live in a body that rejects a timeline from point A to point B? Then you soon fall into a category of people fighting for inclusion for various reasons such as the queer community. Unexpectedly, down-ups and deadlifts lead to the affinity between queerness and the fat body.

After the lecture, Louise Souvagie will be in conversation with activist Philsan Osman. This event takes place as part of the WACF festival and is a collaboration between Studium Generale and VIERNULVIER.

• Louise Souvagie is a writer and moderator. In 2019, she obtained a Master's degree in visual arts from KASK & Conservatorium. She made the podcast ‘GALLERINAS’ and wrote for Rekto:Verso and Extra Extra Magazine. In recent years, she participated in Nieuw Geluid (deBuren), the Week of Art Criticism (Frans Masereel Centrum) and the Mediakaravaan (de lage landen). She teaches art criticism at the Lemmens Institute in Leuven.
• Philsan Osman is co-author of ‘Voor Wie Willen We Zorgen: Ecofeminisme als inspiratiebron’ (EPO 2021). A native of Somalia, she is a writer, activist and community builder.

This lecture will take place at The Minard Theatre —the New Hall is easily accessible for wheelchair users. When purchasing a ticket, please mention that you are a wheelchair user. Then a separate seat will already be reserved for you and your possible companion. Upon arrival at the theatre, you can easily reach the ticket desk via a gentle ramp. Sign in there, and our venue staff will look for escorts. A writing interpreter will be provided. Anyone with further questions about accessibility facilities can contact the organisation: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be. On the spot, questions can be put to the job student at the desk.

The term sexual racism refers to the farce of racial stereotypes, fantasies, fears and lusts projected onto non-white bodies. Sexual racism is deeply rooted in the perceived superiority of the white (male) psyche. A psyche that, through reason, has acquired control and discipline over the white (male) body. As a Black trans woman with an active sexual practice in the diaspora, sexual racism is a daily occurrence.

Is it possible to truly love a Black trans woman? Is it possible to lust after me without fetishising me? What roles do desire and shame play in the emergence of fetishism? Does my Black transwoman body fulfil the role of psycho-sexual terrorist? Can you covet and love a body if that body also evokes fear? How do I neutralise the transmisoginoire violence of those who covet me? How do I escape from this?

Olave: ‘Tonight, we will hold any fig leaves over our pubes. That is, I'm going to talk about sexual violence in my talk, and I won't shun or gloss over erotic and pornographic language. I invite attendees to an exploration of intimacy and sexuality from my perspective — coarseness and violence are the norm and the mechanisms by which my sexual complexity threatens to be flattened.’

• Olave Nduwanje was born in Burundi and raised in the diaspora and is a Black trans woman writer. She was a literary contributor to ‘Zwart- Afro-europese literatuur uit de Lage Landen’ (2018), ‘De Goede Immigrant' (2020) and 'Being Imposed upon' (2020). She has also published several times in De Standaard, OneWold Magazine and also the NRC Handelsblad. Her track record as a writer so far has been marked by short-term projects (columns, articles, literary contributions to anthologies, readings, etc.). Her ambition is to break away from this, in the next few years, and move towards two major projects: a play (working title ‘A Bubble of Five’) and a novel about dying.

This lecture will take place at MIRY Concert Hall. The hall is wheelchair accessible via a lift to the first floor. A sign language interpreter is provided for this lecture. Anyone with further questions about accessibility facilities should contact the organisation: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be. On site, questions can be put to the job student at the desk.

Due to personal circumstances, Lennart Soberon will unfortunately have to be absent for next week's Studium lecture. This Studium evening is therefore cancelled; at 20:30, however, the film will still play in the regular KASKcinema programme, without introduction.

Studium Generale and KASKcinema join forces for an anthology on cinematic corporeality. Although cinema deals in immortality, few bodies have been so successfully preserved for eternity as that of Jean-Claude Van Damme. Once Belgium's most sought-after export, JCVD melted celluloid prints throughout the 1980s and 1990s with the sight of his buttock, stomach and biceps muscles. Fresco-like fight manoeuvres and eyes full of childlike innocence made him stand out with splits and shoulders above the hunks of brute flesh that made up action cinema.

Soaked in techno-paranoia as only the nineties felt, this small-scale sci-fi epic outlines the story of a cyborg soldier on the run from the government agency that created him — as well as a gruff Dolph Lundgren. This breakthrough film from genre craftsman Roland Emmerich has the same genetic material as his later hits, such as ‘Independence Day’ (1998), but stands out for its more intimate scale and red-blooded characters. Van Damme takes centre stage here as Emmerich's supreme Vitriviusman; a body exposed from all sides to exhibit the bliss of action anatomy.

Prior to the film, film scholar and programmer Lennart Soberon will give an introduction on the body politics of American action cinema. In action cinema, (men's) bodies are always a canvas on which desires, insecurities and enemy images of their time are depicted. Using analysis of the genre and its history, Lennart discusses the incarnate power structures these icons represent.

• Lennart Soberon is a researcher in film studies (VUB) and artistic coordinator at KASKcinema. His PhD research dealt with the representation of violence and the construction of enemy images in Hollywood cinema. He is currently working on a project on the cinematic representation of national borders.

This lecture and film screening will take place at KASKcinema. The venue is wheelchair accessible and a limited number of places are provided in the auditorium. The toilet for wheelchair users is on the first floor, accessible by lift. A written-out version of the introduction will be provided. The introduction will be in Dutch and the film will be in English with Dutch subtitles. Anyone with further questions about accessibility facilities should contact the organisation: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be.

Until 2018, trans people in Belgium had to get rid of any possibility of becoming biological parents in their original gender roles. In 2021, Vooruit leader Conner Rousseau proposed temporarily banning mothers unable to care for their children from becoming pregnant again, if necessary with imprisonment as punishment. Selective criteria also apply in the debate on termination of pregnancy: after 12 weeks, abortion is only allowed for medical reasons, which concern not only danger to life but also our idea of which life is valuable enough to be born.

In a society that values autonomy over our bodies, that autonomy appears to be severely limited by ideas of ‘improper use’ of our bodies. Healthy bodies are supposed to create the next generation to care for us and keep the economy going, while bodies considered inferior are especially not allowed to reproduce. In this introductory lecture, writer and philosopher Suzanne Roes explores how our ideas about ideal parenthood and appropriate children are deeply intertwined with our culture and legislation.

The introductory lecture will be followed by a panel discussion with Suzanne Roes, political scientist and disabled queer activist Agnes van Wijnen, and gender researcher Siggie Vertommen in which we will delve deeper into the question of who is allowed and able to become pregnant (and more importantly, who is not) and what this means for those who are queer, disabled and/or racialised. Not only in the Belgian but also in a transnational context. Philosopher and writer Martha Claeys moderates the conversation.

• Suzanne Roes is a Dutch writer and philosopher based in Antwerp with a deep-rooted interest in the word. She speaks, reads, writes and sings, but mostly wonders who gets to take the floor and stage over what. In her academic research on arrogance, she puts social and political questions at the centre. Her debut ‘The Politics of Fertility’ was published by ISVW at the end of January.

• Agnes van Wijnen is a socio-cultural worker, political scientist and Disabled Queer Activist. She has been working for inclusive equality and human rights of disabled people for almost 40 years. Among others, around sexuality and reproductive rights, self-determination, easy language and inclusive education. Agnes collaborated on various studies, published the study ‘Homos met een handicap bestaan niet’ in 1991 and the collection of essays ‘Trots en Treurnis, gehandicapt in Nederland’, and produced ‘Aan Hartstocht geen gebrek’, a photo book on disability, erotica and body perception by Gon Buurman. Together with Henk van Dijk, she made the docu ‘Let me go my own way’ about his long road to being his own boss. Agnes van Wijnen started the historical website gehandicaptenschrijvengeschiedenis.nl and is a member of the Kreukelcollectief.
• Siggie Vertommen works as an assistant professor of gender studies at the University of Amsterdam and as a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University. She does feminist research on the global politics surrounding (medically assisted) reproduction, from Israel/Palestine to Georgia to Belgium. She dreams aloud of feminist revolutions, and is a member of all kinds of collectives such as the UGent Women's Strike, Furia, Slow Science and Sophia. She also has a dog, Eddie, the world's most sympathetic dachshund.
• Martha Claeys holds a PhD in philosophy from the Centre for Ethics at the University of Antwerp. Martha is a columnist for Trouw, Knack, and Sampol. Together with Lotte Spreeuwenberg, she hosts and produces the philosophical podcast ‘Kluwen’. For her debut ‘Pride. The philosophy of an emotion.’ (Boom, 2023), she received the Socrates Cup, the award for the most stimulating philosophical book of 2023. ‘Pride’ also made it to longlist for the Hypatia Prize, awarded every two years to the best philosophy book written by a woman.

The lecture and panel are part of the Festival of Equality and are a collaboration of Studium Generale, de Buren and Curieus vzw. Ticket sales start on 15 October. Students may enter for free on Thursday, but must reserve a free ticket via the festival-equality.be website.

In the second week of November 2024, we received the saddening news that Piet Devos had passed away. On 26 November, we present his latest book Langs bloedbanen: with a reading by Anaïs Van Ertvelde, a conversation with professor of medical ethics Heidi Mertes and music by Mia Thompson. At the end of the evening, we will toast to the life of Piet Devos. He brought stories that had not yet been told, gave voice to what is often forgotten. Piet Devos was an extraordinary poet, writer and researcher. He lost his sight at the age of five due to retinal cancer, an experience that profoundly shaped his life and work. He inspired many as an activist for a greener and more inclusive world, seeing strength in the fragility and value of different perspectives.

About Langs Bloedbanen

Via extensive prenatal screenings and new gene therapies, we are trying to get more and more control over our health and that of our (unborn) children. A noble goal, it seems, but according to researcher and author Piet Devos there is an urgent need for more reflection on this medical-genetic makeability thinking.

Drawing on his own experience with a rare genetic disorder, Devos warns against the tendency to reduce people to a (correctable) DNA profile. As such, the current belief in engineerable genes is the modern offshoot of much older, widespread thinking that seeks to unambiguously identify bodies based on so-called biological characteristics.

While genetic profiling seems to be much more objective than previous classifications based on blood, skull size or skin colour, it is not value-free either. Using DNA to determine who is sick or healthy, which children are desirable or not, is indeed a moral choice. It is therefore high time we openly acknowledge and question such choices. Otherwise, sick and disabled people risk becoming victims of tacit oppression once again.

Langs bloedbanen by Piet Devos is a publication in the Karakters series, pocket-sized essays on philosophy and cultural criticism. Karakters is a collaboration of Studium Generale, Academia Press, deBuren and Rekto:Verso. Anaïs Van Ertvelde reads from Langs bloedbanen. This will be followed by a conversation on the subject with professor of medical ethics Heidi Mertes. Singer and artist Mira Thompson performs an artistic intervention. Afterwards, there will be time for drinks, a toast to Piet Devos' life and you can buy the book at the book stand.

• Piet Devos was a writer and disability researcher. After studying French-Spanish translation in Antwerp and a research master's in Literature Studies in Leiden, Devos obtained his PhD in Groningen in 2013 for a thesis on sensory perception in poetry. During a postdoc in Montréal, he focused further on Disability Studies, in particular the aesthetics of the ‘imperfect’ body in art and literature. His own blindness formed a critical lens and inspiration in this process. In recent years, Pete worked as a guest speaker and lecturer, but also exploited media such as video and podcast.
• Mira Thompson is a singer, songwriter and performer. Inspired by the tradition of vocal jazz, she is attracted to narrative songs with strong poetic and visual elements. During her time at the HKU Utrechts Conservatorium, she developed a fascination for the different ways the voice can function as an embodied instrument. Whether written, spoken or sung, Mira uses language to evoke deep and hidden feelings with a sincere yet witty approach. In 2019, she released her first EP, Festina Lente. Since 2008, she has performed at the Mosaic Theatre, Frascati and the Casco Art Institute, among others: Working for the Commons and has toured in Germany and France.
• Heidi Mertes is professor of medical ethics at Ghent University, founding member of the Bioethics Institute Ghent and of the interdisciplinary platform METAMEDICA. Her academic research focuses on the ethical implications of innovations in healthcare, with a particular focus on reproductive medicine, genetics, embryonic stem cell research, big data, AI and challenges at the intersection of these different domains. She is also committed to initiatives that stimulate the social debate around new medical technology as a board member of the non-profit organisation De Maakbare Mens, and is, among other things, co-chair of the Belgian Federal Commission for Medical and Scientific Research on Embryos in vitro and a member of the Advisory Committee on Bioethics.
• Mari Sanders is a fiction and documentary director. In the series Rolstoel Roadmovie and Mari Staat Op, he investigated dealing with disability in Europe and the Netherlands. He is currently working on his first feature film and on Wild Lam, a training programme for acting talent with disabilities.

This lecture will take place at the Kazematten. The entire building is wheelchair accessible via a spacious lift. A sign language interpreter has been provided for this lecture. Anyone with further questions about accessibility facilities should contact the organisation: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be

When scientists research the body, they usually see it as clean and whole, pure and solid, or even theoretical and fleshless. Rarely do they speak of bodies that continuously cross their porous boundaries by urinating, sneezing, crying, bleeding, vomiting, drooling, sweating, ejaculating, menstruating, suckling. So even scientists are not immune to the taboo surrounding bodily fluids. Why do we have such a difficult relationship with bodily fluids? In this lecture, Ruben Verwaal delves into the messy zones of bodies to answer this question.

Just as the juices literally seep through various places and domains, the researcher of those juices cannot limit themselves to one domain of knowledge. Studying the role of juices in culture and society requires an interdisciplinary approach with attention to history of science and medicine, material and visual culture, psychology and the history of emotions, gender and disability studies. Ruben Verwaal studies the materiality of individual bodily fluids throughout history and shows how the stigma on the leaking body is a modern invention and can therefore change again.

• Ruben Verwaal works as a curator and historian at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam. He obtained his PhD in Groningen on the history of changing perceptions of bodily fluids in European Enlightenment culture. Since then, he specialised in the history of d/Deafness and hard of hearingness. In 2023, he published the public book ‘Bloed, zweet en tranen: Een geschiedenis van de vloeibare mens’ (Thomas Rap).
• emma ydiers is curious about the manifestation of power dynamics in dominant historical narratives of gender and sexuality, the influence of archives on this and the potential of community-based history projects within this. These interests come together in their PhD research (UGent) which approaches the historical culture of feminism after the 1970s in Belgium from the intersection between sexuality, race and class. In addition, emma is attached to One Field Fallow, a place for collective and artistic research and experiments with their own narratives published in Glean, deBuren and rekto:verso, among others.

This lecture will take place at MIRY Concert Hall. The hall is wheelchair accessible via a lift to the first floor. A sign language interpreter is provided for this lecture. Anyone with further questions about accessibility facilities should contact the organisation: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be. On site, questions can be put to the job student at the desk.

A human being is not a sum of body and mind, but a physical or embodied being. When your material physicality does not fit into your material context, your possibilities are constrained. For instance, black bodies are more likely to be hindered in a white world, women's bodies have to be shielded and inhibited in a misogynistic world, fat bodies don't fit in a world set up for average bodies, mounted bodies can't take the stairs, and depressed bodies become inert because their world no longer invites them.

Bodies always function in relation to other bodies and to the environment. Yet the view is still prevalent that you can solve physical problems by focusing on shortcomings in the body, in thinking or in the behaviour of individuals. ‘If you don't fit into the world, you should make sure you do,’ seems to be the adage of our time. In her lecture, Jenny Slatman will first briefly explain where this focus on the individual comes from and what its shortcomings are. She will then present a new view of physicality.

In the follow-up discussion, Professor of Medical & Health Humanities Jenny Slatman, together with Hanane El Kaddouri of Afromedica, an organisation dedicated to ethnic diversity in healthcare, and moderator and disability studies researcher Gert-Jan Vanaken, will discuss what Slatman's insights mean for healthcare. How can we engage with a healthcare system that is still far too ill-equipped to care for the diversity of bodies it should actually care for?

• Jenny Slatman is professor of Medical & Health Humanities at Tilburg University. Her research consists of philosophical-anthropological analyses of corporeality in art, expression and medical practices. She has published several books including Nieuwe Lichamelijkheid (Gorredijk, 2013). In 2010, Slatman received a NWO-VIDI grant for her project Bodily Integrity in Blemished Bodies, and in 2017 she received a NWO-VICI grant for her project Mind the Body: Rethinking embodiment in healthcare.
• Gert-Jan Vanaken trained as a physician and currently works as a postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven and University of Antwerp. His work is situated on the borders of ethics of care, disability studies and clinical autism research. Gert-Jan is particularly interested in how good and equitable autism care can be shaped from a neurodiversity perspective. In 2023, he was part of the twelve “spraakmakende stemmen" of Nieuw Geluid (deBuren).
• Hanane El Kaddouri is a GP-in-training at a community health centre in Ghent. In 2023, she obtained her degree as a basic doctor at Ghent University. Since then, she has been a board member of Afromedica, an organisation dedicated to ethnic diversity in healthcare and healthcare training. As a GP, but also as a woman, Muslim and person with Moroccan roots, she tries to do her bit to build and further develop a healthcare system in which diversity sensitivity and inclusion are self-evident.

This evening is a collaboration between Studium Generale and de Buren. This lecture will take place at MIRY Concert Hall. The hall is wheelchair accessible via a lift to the first floor. A sign language interpreter is provided for this lecture. Anyone with further questions about accessibility facilities should contact the organisation: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be. On site, questions can be put to the job student at the desk.

The quote in the title is a free translation of the answer a young sex worker gave to Avril de Sainte-Croix — a French abolitionist activist — during a conversation about prostitution. Avril sought the abolition of commercial sex and asked the lady in question if ‘the life she was leading did not degout her’. The young woman replied without hesitation, ‘my body is mine and if you ask me, I would rather sell it for one hour for 10 francs than for 10 hours of day labour in exchange for a paltry wage’.

This anecdote dates from the 1930s and contains two views on commercial sex that are diametrically opposed. That conflict was not new. Indeed, one could argue that the problematisation of prostitution by elites versus its stubborn continuation by sex vendors and middlemen is a constant in history. It is thanks to the stubbornness of sex workers, brothel owners and other intermediaries that prostitution is recognised as a form of work today. At least, according to the law. Because in the minds of many people, commercial sex remains a problem.

After her lecture, historian Magaly Rodriguez will enter into a conversation with sex work activist Dinah Bons, not only about the historical roots, but also the contemporary challenges of the ‘problem’ called sex work. This conversation is moderated by Æris Vanermen.

• Magaly Rodríguez (she/her) is a senior lecturer in history at KU Leuven. Together with several colleagues and former sex worker Sonia Verstappen, she published ‘Seks voor geld. Een geschiedenis van prostitutie in België' (Prometheus). She works closely with sex worker aid organisations such as Violett, Boysproject and UTSOPI.

• Dinah Bons (she/he) is a lawyer, caregiver and activist. She also has extensive experience in the theatre world: as an inclusion & diversity strategist and as president of theatre company ‘Raymi Sambo maakt’. She is also founder and director of the Trans United Kliniek. Internationally, she has been active in sex work activism, HIV activism, anti-racism and trans/LGBTQI+ activism for many years. Locally, she is committed to advocacy for-and provision of health care to-trans people of colour, homeless trans people and trans refugees.

• Æris Vanermen (they/them) is a queer intimacy worker, educator & facilitator. Their heart's work is to reduce social inequality by building a professional intimacy sector on a human scale. They do this through engagement with various social organisation and through business support with their company, Hemelhart Solutions.

This evening is a collaboration of Studium Generale and de Buren. This lecture will take place at MIRY Concert Hall. The hall is wheelchair accessible via a lift to the first floor. A sign language interpreter is provided for this lecture. Anyone with further questions about accessibility facilities should contact the organisation: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be. On site, questions can be put to the job student at the desk.

Borders direct our movement. They determine who and what can go where, or just barely. For some people, the world is like a village, while thousands of others lose their lives on Europe's external borders. Those same borders also guide our thinking. We cannot imagine that borders would be very different from the way we know them today. Those who argue for open borders put themselves outside the debate. Can we say goodbye to our view of borders? And why is that so difficult?

After her lecture, Naima Charkaoui will talk to artist Thomas Bellinck.

• Naima Charkaoui studied political science at Ghent University. She has been working on human rights, inequality and racism since 2001. She currently works in the field of international solidarity, before that in the children's rights sector and previously she headed the Minorities Forum for over 10 years. She published several books: 'Racism, about wounds and resilience' (also translated into French as 'Le racisme, une histoire de blessures et de résilience)', 'The open borders manifesto' and the children's book 'Racism, stop the pain' (i.c.w. Ikrame Kastit and Uit de Marge)
• Thomas Bellinck is a Brussels-based artist whose documentary practice branches into theatre, installation art, TV, ... He is best known for his work on state-sanctioned violence, memory politics and mobility inequality.

This lecture will take place at the MIRY Concert Hall. The venue is wheelchair accessible via a lift to the first floor. Live Dutch-language subtitles will be provided for this lecture.

Anyone with further questions about accessibility facilities should contact the organisation: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be. On site, questions can be put to the job student at the desk.

Those born on the verge of the regime change in Poland, grew up hand in hand with the systemic changes the country and the nation had been undergoing in the late 1980s/early 1990s. In a way, this generation embodies all the societal paradigm shifts of that time. They draw from experiences of generations before, who lived through real socialism, all the while functioning in a world of liberal democracy and economy since the get-go.

Perceived by many outside as a story of a peaceful and economically successful regime transition, pundits and public opinion in Europe are surprised by the gradual disintegration of what can be seen as an incredible achievement of Poland in the last decades. This particularly since the conservative Law and Justice party won the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2015.

Through the micro-historical and autobiographical lenses, Olga will comment on the ascent of Poland as a major Eastern European power and show domestic problems that caused this position to change. For this, she draws from her experience as a working class, queer woman going through these developments in the 1990s and 2000s. By doing this, her aim is to complicate the binary narrative of total success followed by total degradation, simultaneously acknowledging the difficult starting—or ending—point for the country at present.

After her lecture, Olga Byrska will talk with researcher Jonas Vanderschueren. Both the talk and the discussion afterwards will take place in English.

• Olga Byrska (she/her) was born in 1991 in Warsaw. She’s a historian finishing her PhD at the European University Institute in Florence. Her professional career started as a journalist, having published over 50 articles in the Polish press. Now she lives in Paris and writes also for theatre.

• Jonas Vanderschueren (he/they) is a postdoctoral fellow at KU Leuven, Faculty of Arts, Cultural Studies. They specialize in contemporary Polish theatre, performance, and culture. They recently obtained a PhD in Cultural Studies with a dissertation entitled Dissenting Bodies: Queering Polishness in Polish theatre since 2005, which investigated the artistic strategies that contemporary Polish makers have developed to resist the pressures to comply with Polish normativity, an inseparable collision between Polish nationalism and heteronormativity.
  
  Currently, they are working on REFAM, a CELSA-funded research collaboration between KU Leuven, University of Tartu, and Jagiellonian University. They are also active as an essayist and research journalist, having contributed to Etcetera, rekto:verso, MO*, Jacobin Nederland, Dialog. Pismo, and various other media.

Work stands in the way of a new world. Everyone is tired, no one has time. It is crucial to imagine new worlds. To do so, we need to be better equipped and relate to each other differently. How can we usher in an end of work? Or perhaps better: in what world does that become possible? An end is always also a beginning, a 'no' always also generative. What 'yeses' can we find together when we say 'no' to work? And how can we already practice with that new world?

After her lecture, Marguerite will talk to editor and rekto:verso coordinator Hannelore Roth.

•  Marguerite van den Berg writes about work, feminism, the city and informal organisation. She published 'Work is not a solution' (AUP), a book on work and work refusal, in 2021. She works as an associate professor at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
• Hannelore Roth is core editor and coordinator at rekto:verso. She previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher in literary and cultural studies at KU Leuven. Her areas of expertise are German literature, gender and (precarious) work. She is also an editor at the journal COLLATERAL - Online Journal for Cross-Cultural Close Reading, and works as a literary translator. Seasonal Labour, her translation of Saisonarbeit by Heike Geißler, was published by balanseer.

MIRY is wheelchair accessible via a lift to the first floor. Live Dutch-language subtitles will be provided for this lecture.

Anyone with further questions about accessibility facilities should contact the organisation: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be. On site, questions can be put to the job student at the desk.

The family is barely working. It is the primary source of violence and sexual abuse for queer youth, women, and children. And in simple labour terms, it asks too much of too few. People who take on the brunt of the care labour within families feel overwhelmed, exploited, lonely and burned-out.

Yet the private nuclear household seems to many of us in the west like a law of nature. Inescapable. But, is it? In fact, care responsibilities, that are now seen as self-evidently within the domain of the family, have previously lived in large part in the commons. Over several centuries, capitalist societies gradually engineered the privatization of care into individual, self-responsible kinship units. This has led to a care scarcity.

According to sociologist Melinda Cooper, this ‘familization’ process has been crucial in the rise of both neoconservative and neoliberal forms of economic governance. Familist capitalism exploits the fact that ‘the family’ feels non-negotiable for most people, not to mention indispensable to many marginalized and state-criminalized people’s survival.

Utopian thinkers, including Marx and Engels but also black anti-imperialist feminists in the US, have raised the possibility of ‘abolishing the family’ for over two centuries. Now, after Covid lockdowns showed us how untenable families are under pressure, there is resurgent curiosity around the world about non-capitalist ways of organizing care. What does familism prevent us from doing and desiring? How might we think about bringing an end to organized care scarcity?

• Sophie Lewis is a feminist writer and independent scholar living in Philadelphia. She is currently at work on a third book manuscript entitled ‘Enemy Feminisms’. Her first two books, both published by Verso Books, are ‘Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family (2019)’ and ‘Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation’.  Sophie’s essays and articles appear in academic journals like ‘Feminist Theory’ as well as literary ones like the London Review of Books. Dr. Lewis has a visiting affiliation with the Center for Research on Feminist, Queer and Transgender Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. You can find her lectures and writings at lasophielle.org, and become a subscriber at patreon.com/reproutopia.

After her lecture, Sophie Lewis will talk to writer and gender studies researcher Siggie Vertommen. Both the talk and the discussion afterward will take place in English. There will be live translation to Flemish Sign Language.

• Siggie Vertommen works as an assistant professor of gender studies at the University of Amsterdam and as a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University. She conducts feminist research into the global politics surrounding (medically assisted) reproduction from Israel/Palestine to Georgia to Belgium. She dreams of feminist revolutions and is a member of all kinds of collectives such as the Ghent University Women’s Strike, Furia, Slow Science and Sophia. She also has a dog, Eddie, the most lovable dachshund in the world.

On accessibility: The entrance from the street has an entrance shaft with a push button. There is a lift to the 2nd floor. The Balzaal hall is accessible to persons in wheelchairs, accompanied by a staff member.

More about the accessibility of the venue.

Panel with Sibo Kanobana, Nozizwe Dube and Heleen Debeuckelaere at the Festival of Equality

In this panel, continuing at the Festival of Equality in collaboration with Curieus, we aim to question the 'post' in postcolonial with researcher and lecturer in postcolonial studies Sibo Kanobana, historian and journalist Heleen Debeuckelaere and lawyer Nozizwe Dube. For where and when did colonialism actually end? Are we really living in a post-colonial world? So how did this transition from colonial to postcolonial happen? Where are the differences and where are the similarities between the two times?

These reflections also lead us to larger history-philosophical questions: how do great historical periods actually end? And who decides they are over? Are we allowed to reopen the past? Who has a say in that? Or should we let it rest and invent new futures? And of course: how do we (then) end colonialism? Are there ways to do that constructively and destructively, or do construction and destruction always go hand in hand? Should we decolonise or re-indigenise? And how much of the current white world must be dismantled to do so?

Sibo Rugwiza Kanobana is associate professor of cultural and postcolonial studies at the Open University of the Netherlands and affiliated to the Department of Conflict and Development at Ghent University. He obtained his PhD in sociolinguistics in 2022 and has been editor for Rekto:Verso, the Flemish journal of criticism and culture, since 2017. In 2010, Sibo co-wrote the book 'The bastards of our colony' about the hushed-up history of the metis from the Belgian Congo. In 2021, he published the book 'Zwarte Bladzijden', an anthology of essays discussing Flemish (post-)colonial literature from a black perspective. Sibo is currently finalising a new book entitled 'White Order. On race, class and whiteness' which will be published by De Geus in 2024.

Heleen Debeuckelaere is a historian by programme (Ghent University) and an activist by conviction. She lives and works in Brussels, where she writes about the life and suffering of the Afro-diaspora in Belgium and Europe. She has published to date in De Correspondent, rekto:verso and on various English-language online media. She contributed to Zwart (2018, Atlas Contact), a collection of stories by nineteen black writers from the Netherlands and Belgium, edited by Vamba Sherif and Ebissé Rouw. In 2021, she became project coordinator at Globe Aroma and domestic editor at De Standaard.

Nozizwe Dube is a PhD candidate in EU anti-discrimination law at Maastricht University, where she researches how intersectional discrimination can be recognised in EU anti-discrimination law. She holds a Master's degree in Law from KU Leuven and Venice International University (Italy). She did internships at the Belgian Constitutional Court and the United Nations in New York. During her studies, she was coordinator of UNDIVIDED, a student platform working around decolonisation, gender, LGBTQ+ students and intersectionality. She is also co-founder of Karibu African Circle Leuven, a student association that provides a home for Leuven students with African roots. She has written opinion pieces for, among others, MO* Magazine and Society and Politics Magazine. Nozizwe was president of the Flemish Youth Council from 2015 to 2018.

Live Dutch-language written subtitles will be projected during the panel discussion. Anyone with further questions about accessibility facilities should contact the organisers: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be.

This event will take place in the Domzaal of Arts Centre VIERNULVIER. About accessibility: The entrance from the street has an entrance shaft with a push button. There is a lift to the 4th floor. The auditorium is accessible to persons in wheelchairs, accompanied by a staff member.