21 Jun 2025
15:00 - 18:00
Colonial Violence Then and Now: From Vught to Gaza
On 21 June 2025, this public event brings together critical scholars to examine the deep connections between Europe’s colonial past and contemporary forms of violence and exclusion. Through a conversation between anthropologist Sinan Çankaya, political theorist Arun Kundnani, and theologian Janneke Stegeman, the event explores how national memory, religious and secular ideologies, and imperial legacies continue to shape our world today.
By drawing connections across disciplines and geographies, the event invites participants to reflect on how we remember, what we silence, and what kinds of solidarity are needed today. It aims to foster critical dialogue and encourage collective accountability in the face of ongoing global injustice.
Focusing on sites such as the former concentration camp in Vught and the ongoing violence in Gaza, the event interrogates how histories of colonialism, racial capitalism, and theological justifications of domination persist in present-day narratives and institutions. The discussion addresses how liberal antiracism often fails to confront state power and geopolitical complicity and calls for a deeper understanding of justice.
Speakers
Anya Topolski is Associate Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy at Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Her publications include Arendt, Levinas and a Politics of Relationality (2015) and Is There a Judeo-Christian Tradition? (2016). Articles for her hand appeared in Critical Philosophy of Race, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and History of Political Thought.
Nawal Mustafa is an Assistant Professor in Black Studies, Critical Race Studies, and Indigenous Studies within the Cultural Studies department at the University of Amsterdam.
Janneke Stegeman has co-authored a brilliant book Uitverkoren (2024) on Dutch Christian legacies of shaping Dutch positive, tolerant, ethical… self-image, and their connections to racism and colonialism.
Sinan Çankaya has written a brilliant book Galmende Geschiedenissen (2025) on the connections between antisemitism, Islamophobia, and WWII, and contemporary genocide of Palestians in Gaza.
Arun Kundnani is the author of What is Antiracism? (Verso, 2023), The Muslims are Coming! (Verso, 2014) and The End of Tolerance (Pluto, 2007), and co-author of Homeland Security: Myths and Monsters (Common Notions, 2024). He has written about the entangled legacies of racisms and colonialisms that come together in the Dutch site of the former concentration camp Vucht.
The event is supported by The Race, Equity and Inclusion Project; En/Gendering Europe’s “Muslim Question” Vici project; and Feminist Transnational Sociology.
Omstreden erfgoed / Koloniale geschiedenis / Palestina /
Netwerk
Anya Topolski
Nawal Mustafa
Janneke Stegeman
Arun Kundnani
