Category: Research Focus Areas
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Forests and Rivers: Rethinking Relation and Representation in Philosophy (Workshop)
Forests and rivers are ecosystems that not only harbour extraordinary biodiversity but also function as powerful images and metaphors through which the relationship between humans and the environment is articulated and rethought. As entities that are both material and symbolic, they call into question the ontological status of the relations between the human and the…
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Practices of Epoché: A Phenomenological Retreat (Summer School)
Phenomenology did not begin with a doctrine but with a method: the epoché and phenomenological reduction. Husserl’s rallying invitation – Zu den Sachen selbst! – signalled not merely a theoretical shift but a transformation in how one lives, attends, and relates to phenomena. At its origin, phenomenology was as much a praxis as a philosophy: a chain of conscious acts…
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Transatlantic Resonances: Philosophical Entanglements between Africa and the Americas (Lecture Series)
This lecture series takes the transatlantic space between Africa and the Americas as its contextual point of departure to explore the complex processes of philosophical exchange that have emerged on both sides of the Atlantic. The history of relations between Africa and the Americas is marked by experiences of racism, slavery, and colonialism, but also…
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Transatlantic Resonances as a Site of Philosophical Inquiry (Roundtable)
With this roundtable, we conclude the lecture series “Transatlantic Resonances: Philosophical Entanglements between Africa and the Americas.” Over the past three months, seventeen lectures have explored the transatlantic space as a site where philosophy emerges not as a singular, canonical tradition, but as a plural and contested field of knowledge production unfolding across continents, languages,…
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Igbo Philosophy Colloquium: Reclaiming Indigenous Wisdom (International Workshop)
This colloquium explores how the Igbo people have developed their own unique way of doing philosophy highlighting the indigenous resources through which the Igbo people articulate questions of existence, knowledge, ethics, and communal life. Often, people mistakenly believe that “real” philosophy only comes from Western, written books. In this colloquium, we challenge this idea by…
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Fanon at Home, Fanon Abroad: The Paradox of Reception in Martinique (Justin Daniel)
This talk explores the reception of Frantz Fanon’s work in Martinique through a paradox: how can a Martinican intellectual become a central figure in global anti-colonial theory and African decolonisation debates while remaining marginal in his home island’s political and cultural landscape? Drawing on my published work on Fanon’s trajectories and legacies, I propose a…
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Frantz Fanon: Political Phenomenology of Embodiment (Abbed Kanoor)
In this lecture, I address three interrelated aspects: I explore how Fanon both continued and transformed the cultural and poetic concerns of his Martinican mentor and high school teacher, Aimé Césaire, particularly regarding Négritude by developing them on a scrutinized bodily and psychoanalytic level. Drawing on Peau noire, masques blancs (1952) and a selection of…
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Elmar Holenstein‘s Philosophy Atlas: Translating and Expanding a Global Cartography of Philosophy
This Research Focus is dedicated to the translation, revision, and expansion of Elmar Holenstein’s Philosophie-Atlas: Orte und Wege des Denkens. Holenstein’s Philosophy Atlasremains one of the most ambitious attempts to visualize the history of philosophy not as a linear sequence of canonical names, but as a geographically situated, multilingual, and interculturally entangled history of thought. Through maps,…
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Osiris González Romero Joins GloPhi to Research Native American Philosophies in Mesoamerica
We are delighted to welcome Dr. Osiris González Romero as a Long-Term Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies “Philosophizing in a Globalized World” at the University of Hildesheim. He will be part of GloPhi from March 2026 to February 2027. Osiris González Romero is a scholar of Native American philosophies, intercultural philosophy, Mesoamerican and Latin American studies, psychedelic studies,…
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The Black Atlantic and the Americas: Cultural Theory and Philosophy (Markus Heide)
This lecture explores the Atlantic world as a space of cultural exchange, mobility, and intellectual transformation. Drawing on concepts such as Paul Gilroy’s Black Atlantic and recent approaches to transnational and postcolonial studies, it examines how dominant narratives of modernity have often privileged European and North American experiences while marginalizing the histories of slavery, forced migration, and…
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Philosophizing in Portuguese: African Perspectives (Workshop)
While philosophy in Africa is increasingly recognized today as a part of the world philosophical discourse, the discourse on and in African philosophy mainly focuses on the Anglophone and Francophone parts of Africa south of the Sahara. The philosophy of the Portuguese-speaking part of Africa, that is, countries like Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, and São Tomé and Príncipe,…
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Feminist Cartographies in and Beyond Africa: Redrawing the Maps of Women’s Freedom and Agency (Abosede Ipadeola)
In this lecture, I engage with cartography, both literally and figuratively. I examine it as a philosophical metaphor for thinking through the conditions of women’s freedom and agency in and beyond Africa. Rather than treating maps as neutral representations of space, I approach them as epistemic and ontological tools that determine visibility and invisibility, center…
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Cuerpo-Territorio, Reggaeton and Religion: Feminist Approaches in Latin America (Magdalena Andrea Kraus)
In Latin America, women have been fighting against patriarchal structures of dependency and for social justice for centuries. Based on this practice, numerous thinkers have developed and implemented fundamental theoretical concepts, such as the inclusion of feminicide (the murder of women) in criminal law. This lecture will provide an introductory overview of feminist perspectives in…
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African Philosophy, Reparations, and Epistemic Justice (International Conference)
Under the aegis of Africa Day, celebrated on May 25 as a symbolic milestone established by the Organization of African Unity in 1963, this event serves as a forum for critical reflection on African philosophical thought, and the contemporary challenges facing Africa and its diasporas.The conversations will evolve around reflections on the role of philosophy…
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Longue Durée Négritude: Thinking the Movement Beyond the Twentieth Century (Hanétha Vété-Congolo)
This talk examines the form of Negritude that has come to shape our scholarly and popular understanding – one shaped by the intellectual and creative contributions of Paulette Nardal and Aimé Césaire of Martinique, Léon‑Gontran Damas of Guyane, and Léopold Sédar Senghor of Senegal. I first situate Negritude within its layered contexts: the local landscapes…
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From Utopia to Dystopia? An Account of African Liberation Philosophy (José P. Castiano)
The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), carried by San Domingo’s African descendants, should be placed, in the so-called “universal” philosophy of history, as a turning point into modern times, parallel to and in combination with the French Revolution (1789). In the same way, the accomplishment of the liberation movements and struggles for African nations’ independence (1958–1975) should…
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From Dependency to Liberation (Luis Martínez Andrade)
In the early 1970s, Latin America and the Caribbean witnessed the emergence of Liberation Theology. An intellectual and spiritual expression of Liberation Christianity (M. Löwy), this theological movement had a significant impact on both the epistemological and sociopolitical spheres.A precursor to what is now called the decolonial turn, Liberation Theology criticized the symbolic and material structures…
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The River, Self-Determination and Indigenous Peoples (Book Presentation & Art Exhibition)
Fernando Márquez Duarte will present the three books he has published regarding the Cucapáh Indigenous group: Awí Uyáj Cucapáh: El saber Cucapáh (2023), Manual de la Lengua Cucapáh (2024), Sociolingüística Cucapáh (2025), and discuss them with Diego Rosales and Raymundo Medina. These books are the result of over three years of ethnographic field work with the Cucapáh in the communities of…
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A Transcontinental Pendulum: African and Afro-Brazilian Epistemic Continuities (Sanya Osha)
The evolution of African and Afro-Brazilian philosophical discourses has never really trailed the accepted genealogies created by Euro-American philosophy. The path it adopted, rather, is checkered by the seismic ordeals of slavery, colonisation, chronic demotic displacement, cultural alienation and uneven socioeconomic development. Furthermore, it was shaped largely by disruptive scripts of resistance and the often…
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Silence, Exclusion, and Recovery: Feminist Philosophy in Modern India (Priyanka Jha)
Among the philosophical traditions engaging the human condition in Modern India, a significant strand is gendered and feminist thought. This tradition has co-existed within broader philosophical discussions. Yet, larger historical accounts often overlook this tradition. Such omission arises from not recognising women thinkers as philosophers or relegating their work to abstract ‘musings’ rather than sustained…
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Phänomenologie der Situation & Situierte Lektüren (Workshop)
Im Gegensatz zur (post-)cartesianischen Philosophie der Moderne, die von einer homogenen und neutralen Räumlichkeit ausgeht, ist die Phänomenologie für eine Reflexion der Situiertheit prädestiniert, insofern der Ort und die Räumlichkeit grundlegende Bedeutung für die sinnhafte Orientierung in der Welt ist. Der Leib-Körper stellt hierbei nicht einfach eine Position unter anderen dar, die sich in einem…
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Tlamatiliztli: The Wisdom of the Nahua People. Intercultural Philosophy and Right to Land (Osiris González Romero)
The aim of this presentation is the systematic analysis of the concept of wisdom developed by Nahua people of Mexico based on historical sources and archaeological evidence, but also on the knowledge of contemporary indigenous communities and indigenous scholars. The aim of this study is to demonstrate how the cognitive structures embedded in indigenous languages…
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Sanya Osha Joins GloPhi to Explore Yorùbá Thought and Afro-Brazilian Epistemic Continuities
Prof. Sanya Osha will join the Center for Advanced Studies “Philosophizing in a Globalized World” as a Fellow from March to June 2026. As part of GloPhi’s Yoruba language/philosophy focus, Osha will contribute to the Center’s ongoing work on African languages, intellectual traditions, and global histories of philosophizing. His research engages Pre-Socratic systems of thought, West African philosophy, Southern…
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Philosophizing in Yoruba (Language Focus)
Yorùbá is the language and culture of a people primarily found in Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Sierra Leone, Cuba, and Brazil. Although Yorùbá literature and historical studies have experienced considerable growth over the years, Yorùbá philosophy has not received much attention or development. Nonetheless, Yorùbá philosophy shows potential due to the depth of intellectualism demonstrated by…
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Migrating Ideas from East to West: Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay on the Race Question (Priyanka Jha)
This lecture challenges the Eurocentric view that emancipatory ideas such as liberty, equality, and human dignity flowed solely from the West to the non-West. Instead, it argues that intellectual exchange has always been multidirectional and dialogical.By situating race within colonial modernity and anti-colonial struggle, the lecture foregrounds how Indian nationalist and anti-caste thinking engaged in…
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Decolonial Activist and Scholar Fernando David Márquez Duarte Joins GloPhi to Research Cucapáh Thought
Dr. Fernando David Márquez Duarte is joining the Center for Advanced Studies “Philosophizing in a Globalized World” as a Short-Term Fellow from March to July 2026. A Mexican decolonial activist and scholar from Mexicali, Mexico, Márquez Duarte works at the intersection of decoloniality, Indigenous studies, and environmental justice, with a regional focus on Latin America / Abya Yala. He…
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Making Global Philosophical Sources Visible: HePS in Dialogue with Experts on Digital Access to Cultural Goods
On 4 May 2026, Prof. Dr. Rolf Elberfeld and Dr. Leon Krings presented the Hildesheim Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sources (HePS) at the University of Münster’s Center for Advanced Studies “Access to Cultural Goods in the Digital Age.” The guest lecture, entitled “Hildesheim Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sources (HePS): An open-access digital infrastructure for the documentation, interconnection,…
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Relating to the Ocean (Monika Rohmer & Liliana Gómez)
This double lecture sheds light on the consequences of taking a fluid, oceanic space as point of departure of this series. While Immanuel Kant has warned us to leave the shores (of experience) to venture into a boundless ocean (of speculative claims), our joint lecture explores the potentials and requirements of relating to the ocean…
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On the Affective Moods of Being: A Philosophical Exploration of Affects in Ibrahim Niasse’s Thought (Philipp Valentini)
The Center for Advanced Studies “Philosophizing in a Globalized World” invites you to a book launch and discussion with Philipp Valentini on his new monograph On the Affective Moods of Being: A Philosophical Exploration of Affects in Ibrahim Niasse’s Thought (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026). The book stages a sustained philosophical encounter between the Senegalese Sufi scholar and Shaykh…
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Cosmopolitical Encounters in the Americas and Beyond: Ecology, Indigenous Knowledge, and Philosophy (Falk Parra-Witte)
In numerous traditions and cultures, anthropology has faced premises about humanity, life, truth and reality that challenge modernity’s materialist, rationalist and intellectual paradigms. Be it spiritual domains, cosmic forces or non-human entities, the issue was often seen through epistemic debates about reason, belief and representation pertaining to (un-scientific) worldviews. Since the 1990’s, anthropology took an…
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Nepantla as a Transitional Space: The Colonial and Decolonial Destiny of a Nahuatl Concept (Lorena Grigoletto)
My contribution investigates the genealogy and philosophical meaning of the Nahuatl term Nepantla, tracing it back to its original indigenous philosophy and exploring its subsequent reinterpretations in contemporary postcolonial and feminist thought. Originally meaning “in the middle,” the term Nepantla is first mentioned in a 16th-century chronicle to describe the existential and ontological condition of…
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Travelling Concepts: Ubuntu as a Particular Universal (Lindokuhle Shabane)
It is a truism that the Southern African concept of ubuntu is not a stable concept, or even, despite being typically treated as such, a cultural essence. Rather, it is a historically situated orientation that has been compelled to travel under colonial and postcolonial conditions of legibility. Ontologically, ubuntu typically explicates being as constitutively relational:…
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Yorùbá Philosophy: Critical Perspectives on Indigenous Concepts and Phenomena (International Workshop)
The study and conceptualization of subjects and concepts across different disciplines in indigenous languages have been gaining significant traction in recent times. To expand academic curricula, challenge rigid disciplinary canons, and decolonize scholarship, scholars are increasingly appreciating the cruciality of examining ideas and concepts in languages that have long been excluded from knowledge generation and…