"To decolonize is to learn to see again, in a cross-disciplinary intersectional way, to de-naturalize the world in which we operate, made by human beings and by economic and political regimes." (Françoise Vergès, Décolonisons les arts, 2018)
Decolonial approaches are seen here as approaches to the world and the arts taking as their object colonialism and coloniality (the matrix of colonialism, beyond its formal independence). Although these projects may lie in counterpoint to the resurgence of colonial specters, they attempt to go beyond simple reevaluation and further seek how literary texts make possible to unlearn their own paradigms of categorization. In the wake of the widely recognized theories of Achille Mbembe, Edward Saïd or Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (in particular), the critical tradition of postcolonial studies focused on those left "speechless" by colonization (Aimé Césaire) - - are currently in dialogue with discourses of "resistance" on other crucial contemporary issues. These issues include, for one, the question of the environment (Malcolm Ferdinand, Arturo Escobar), possibly in connection questions of feminism (Vergès & ecofeminism); the diversity of languages and the difference in legitimacy granted to them (e.g. the language of the colonist, languages of the colonized); the dominance of Western cultural and religious concepts and representations (e.g. the concept of rhetorics of reconciliation and forgiveness), the stereotypical representations of otherness since Western Humanism and the Renaissance to , literary primitivism and/or the discursive treatment of the "skin" and structural violence. This project is comprised of workshops for researchers and Masters workshops. The project looks at the analysis of a literary corpus cross-referenced between the different linguistic traditions involved. It also addresses contemporary texts from a decolonial perspective on the question of otherness as well as from a perspective of "connected histories" (or shared histories).
Members :
PhD
Theses in progress : Alicia Lambert (FSR-UCLouvain Grant holder), Decolonising Stereotypes: Possibilities and Limits of Contemporary Comics
This project examines stereotypes in twenty-first century comic books and graphic novels dealing with Belgium’s colonial past. Stereotypes about Africa, the (ex-)colonized and the (ex-)colonizers will be examined, as well as the narrative, discursive and visual techniques that allow them to be reversed, or be condemned. By doing so, this study aims to demonstrate that comics, despite their tendency towards caricature, can be used to deconstruct stereotypes.
Publications (recents/majors)
- Bragard, Véronique ; Parent, Sabrina ; Amuri Mapala-Lutebele, Maurice. "Entre évitement et ressassement : le spectre colonial belge dans les productions littéraires, artistiques et culturelles". In: Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire, Vol. 97, no.3, p. -- (2020).
- Bragard, Véronique ; Fabry, Geneviève. "A Parrot without Feathers? Ventriloquy, Orality, and Nostalgia in Vargas Llosa's The Storyteller and Pauline Melville's The Ventriloquist's Tale". In: Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 53, no.3, p. 454-477 (2016).
- Bragard, Véronique. "Out of Darkness? Bofane's Afropean Ndombolo Trickster Resistance in Mathematiques congolaises". In: Essays in French Literature and Culture, Vol. 52, no.1, p. 63-78 (2015). 2014
- Bragard, Véronique. "Ramasser les mots parmi les détritus : écriture et poétique de l’ordure dans l’œuvre de Jean-Luc Raharimanana". In: Les Lettres Romanes, Vol. 68, no.1-2, p. 149-171 (2014).
- Roland, Hubert. « Le ‘primitivisme littéraire’ à l’heure de la modernité ». In : Franca Bruera & Barbara Meazzi (dir.), Plurilinguisme et Avant-gardes, Bruxelles/Bern (e.a.), P.I.E. Peter Lang, p. 385-400.
Conferences
- Bragard, V. & Parent, S. Le passé colonial belge au prisme des productions littéraires et artistiques contemporaines (2000-2015) (ULB), 2017.
- Bragard, V. et Parent, S. & Feyereisen, J. Utopie et migration : Renouveler l’imaginaire des frontières au XXIe siècle. Colloque international et multidisciplinaire (Oxford University, April 2021).
