Conference
WHEN
April 6-8, 2026
WHERE
NYU Abu Dhabi
WHO
NYU Abu Dhabi Institute
By Invitation
Interested scholars please contact rs9112@nyu.edu
In recent times, Afro-Asia has attracted renewed interest, to a large degree inspired by emphatic calls for ‘decolonization’ within university curricula in many parts of the world. The academic investment in curricular decolonization has found resonance in wider society through mediatized movements drawing attention to the perseverance of racial and gendered violence, compelling a revisitation of the Afro-Asia proposition and attempts to find newer axes of solidarity. Recognizing the significance and politics of location, we are holding a conference to revisit the critical currency of Afro-Asia from the locus of the Gulf region, which has been a zone of encounters and flows of commodities, cultures, and people from across continents.
We seek papers that engage with the following questions: What political and cultural commitments that emerged in the era of decolonization and its hopeful promise of another way forward remain in a moment where Asian countries assert their power in a multi-polar world system? What older, pre-colonial and colonial era memories of connection, relation, and solidarity undergird Afro-Asia as a potent potential for worldmaking? How can an attention to the creative impulses that motivated Afro-Asia’s circulation in the mid-20th century be understood through contemporary visual, sensorial, and creative material shaped by other, more recent concepts such as Afropolitanism? How do contemporary encounters between Africans and Asians in various geographic locations impact the ways politics (both formal and informal) are understood and enacted on the ground?
Papers can be academic presentations, but we are also interested in receiving proposals from artists and curators who would like to present their work in innovative formats, recognizing that, due to space and budgetary constraints, we cannot display exhibitions. We are also interested in receiving proposals from filmmakers who would like to screen their work. Please include a link to a screener to be considered.
Please submit your proposals, which should include a 200-word abstract and the title of your paper, artist talk, or film, by November 15th to be considered. Please also include your bio, institutional affiliation, and contact details. Filmmakers should also include a screener.
There is no registration fee for this conference. Limited financial support is available for participants from the Global South, independent researchers, artists, filmmakers, and graduate students. To request funding, please include a 200-word justification along with your abstract.
November 15, 2025
Selected participants will be notified by 15 December 2025.
For questions, please contact Rashmi Devi Sawhney, rs9112@nyu.edu, or Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan, egd231@nyu.edu.
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