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By Alice Flinta In June this year, EUTERPE doctoral candidate Alice Flinta participated in the seventeenth annual Black Europe Summer School – Interrogating Citizenship, Race and Ethnic Relations . The organisers, Prof. Kwame Nimako, Dr Camilla Hawthorne (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Prof. Stephen Small (University of California, Berkeley), brought us together – an enthusiastic cohort of around thirty-five students from various backgrounds – for two weeks, at IIRE, the International Institute for Research and Education in Amsterdam. BESS is a hub for intellectual, political, and social interrogation over race relations in Europe. This year it opened with an introductory talk by Prof. Nimako delineating a concise history of the coming together of the European Union. The lecture focused on which social and political stakeholders have been involved in the process, and which ones haven’t. Such an approach underscored the analysis of the EU’s power structure, its economic interests and social priorities. It shed light on the emergence of racist, nativist views that are reflected in current systems of “racial citizenship” and are fundamental to the notion of Fortress Europe. [PB1]   The second day, we started by taking a tour of four European port cities and their relationships with Blackness, intellectually guided by Prof. Olivette Otele (SOAS), whose copies of African-Europeans: An Untold Story  (London: Hurst & Company, 2020) were resting on most desks that day. From day three, we started to zoom into the different national realities, and approached race and race relations on a country-by-country basis. We started with Dr Margaret Amaka Ohia-Nowak (Marie Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin) guiding us though “Black Poland,” to then move onto “Black Germany” with Dr Madeline Bass (Max Planck Institute, Göttingen), “Black Britain” with Prof. Stephen Small, “Black Italia” with Dr Camilla Hawthorne, and “Black Portugal” with Dr Cristina Roldão (University Institute of Lisbon). In one of our last seminars, Dr Giovanni Picker (University of Glasgow) prompted us to move beyond the framework of the nation-state and adopt a transnational and transhistorical lens to assess the potentialities of juxtaposing Black European and Critical Romani Studies. [PB2]  Participants had the chance to present their research, projects and ideas at the day-long Inside Black Europe and African Diaspora Symposium  that took place on Friday, 27 June. The symposium was organised around four panels, the topics of which ranged from literature to sociological, ethnographic and methodological research, and a preview screening of a documentary on Afrori Books – Books by Black Authors  bookshop in Brighton (UK). Inspired by Dr Hawthorne’s “Black Italia”, I gave a presentation on how Afroitalian literature draws on the Mediterranean (as a relational space, but also as a philosophical framework) to disrupt and challenge racial affiliations in Europe. Fundamental to BESS is experiencing and engaging with legacies, memories and responses to Europe’s colonial past. For this purpose, the participation of the School’s cultural attaché, Jennifer Tosch, founder of Amsterdam’s Black Heritage Tours , was invaluable. From a boat tour of Amsterdam’s colonial past to a visit to Kehinde Wiley’s exhibition at the Van Loon Museum , from a guided excursion of the Royal Palace to a preview talk and walk on the site of the forthcoming National Slavery Museum , to the unforgettable Keti Koti Day on 1 st  July, Tosch brought to life many of the discussions that took place throughout the two weeks of workshops. Finally, the tour of the Wereldmuseum’s exhibition Our Colonial Inheritance  and the lecture by Wayne Modest were crucial to spark conversations on the management and remembrance of colonial legacies and their future. BESS is a fundamental experience not only for those who think, write and feel with and through questions of race and Blackness in Europe, but also for those who think, write and feel through Europe. As the many workshops, talks, lectures and presentations have made clear, Blackness has been, and regretfully remains, a marginal question within the European project – be it intellectual, social or political. Black Europe  is not just an educational programme, but also a social and political mission that leaves us, participants, with both an invaluable range of tools and frameworks to make our work more careful, caring and attuned to reality, and a renewed sense of engagement and purpose.

During this year’s Feminisms in a Transnational Perspective Postgraduate Course  held May 12-16 at the Dubrovnik (Croatia) IUC , we had a chance to present some of the results of the EUTERPE project. Under the title “The Otherwise of History”, the 18 th  Postgraduate Course gathered feminists across disciplines to consider the subversive potential of feminist and women’s history and to discuss how thinking historically from a transnational and feminist perspective can contribute to a politics of solidarity and alliances. As part of the panel Women, Counter Memory, and Feminist Resistance , Tamara Cvetković, EUTERPE DC based at the CEU, presented her research on women’s counter-narratives on Chechen asylum seekers in Austria based on the novel Losses in Friction by Mascha Dabic. On a roundtable about the GEMMA ERASMUS Mundus program – Transnational Futures, Thinking Across Generations, Jasmina Lukić, the Principal Leader of EUTERPE, talked about the importance of feminist networks, knowledge dissemination, transnational connections, and about the cooperation between EUTERPE and GEMMA program. The roundtable was moderated by EUTERPE’s Granada PI, Adelina Sánchez Espinosa.   https://www.facebook.com/interuniversitycentre/ https://www.instagram.com/iucdubrovnik/?hl=en

EUTERPE Spring School Lecture Series Date and Time:  Wednesday 21 May 2025, 5pm–7pm Location:  BS/005, Bowland Auditorium, Berrick Saul Building, Campus West, University of York (In-person and online) Admission:  Free, booking required → Book tickets Photo credit:  Efe Ersoy “Gaza does not propel people to cool contemplation; rather, she propels them to erupt and collide with the truth.” – Mahmoud Darwish, Silence for Gaza  (1973) In collaboration with Comma Press , the EUTERPE project  is proud to present A Collision with Truth , a powerful panel event amplifying Palestinian British voices  in literature and lived experience. This timely and urgent discussion will feature writers and performers Nada Shawa , Mohammed Ghalayini , and Azhar Herez , in conversation with moderator and EUTERPE doctoral researcher Ninutsa Nadirashvili . Together, they will explore the role of writing, storytelling, and transnational authorship amidst the trauma and injustice of ongoing violence in Gaza. Through a blend of testimony, creative reflection, and critical insight, the panel will ask: What does it mean to write under siege? To speak for and within a community facing genocide? How do we bear witness on the page and in public? A Q&A will follow the panel, offering audience members the chance to engage directly with the speakers. About the Speakers Nada Shawa  is a Palestinian writer and dancer who moved from Gaza to Scotland as a child. Her work fuses personal experience, disability activism, and solidarity with Palestinian resistance. Her latest publication, Indigenous Soul: Gaza and Me , supports the Gaza Culture and Development Group. Mohammed Ghalayini  is a writer, translator, and co-author of the play Light in Me Don’t Die , which brings to life the words of Palestinian survivors and martyrs. His work bridges journalism, science, and literature, with extensive reporting from Gaza and translations published widely by Comma Press. Azhar Herez  is a poet of mixed Palestinian and English heritage whose father’s family is from Gaza. She began publicly performing her work in response to the ongoing violence, offering her voice as both protest and solidarity. Ra Page  is the founder and CEO of Comma Press , an award-winning publisher committed to global, political, and socially conscious fiction. He has edited over 30 anthologies and is a leading figure in the UK publishing scene. Venue Map:   View map Enquiries:   Contact us This event is part of the EUTERPE Spring School Lectures — a space for critical engagement, creative resistance, and transnational literary dialogue. Join us in person or online for this vital conversation.

Jaya Jacobo Coventry University Researcher Jaya Jacobo is a transfeminine thinker and artist based at Coventry University where she currently does work on trans feminist pedagogies in literature, art and performance. She has worked alongside travesti and transsexual women artists, scholars and community workers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as well as with trans, queer and nonbinary Filipina/x/o performers from the Philippines and Filipino diaspora abroad. Jacobo was a former Board Member of the Society of Trans Women of the Philippines (STRAP), a former President of the Film Desk of the Young Critics Circle (YCC) of the Philippines, a Founding Co-Editor of Queer Southeast Asia: A Transgressive Journal of Literary Art and Co-Editor of BKL: Bikol/Bakla, Anthology of Bikolnon Gay Trans Queer Writing . Jaya is the author of Arasahas , her debut volume of poetry in Filipino from Savage Mind Publishing House. Publications: Jacobo, Jaya. 2024. “A Love That Burns Hot Enough to Last: Scenes from Trans Tropical Love”. ETropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics 23 (1):18-24. Adriany, V, Bong, SA, Curtin, B, Jacobo, J & Luther, JD. 2022. "Pedagogy of queer studies beyond empire." in S Tang & HY Wijaya (eds), Queer Southeast Asia. 1 edn, Taylor and Francis - Balkema, pp. 243-265.

María Auxiliadora Castillo Soto María Auxiliadora Castillo Soto holds an Erasmus Mundus Master’s Degree in Women’s and Gender Studies (GEMMA) from the universities of Granada in Spain and Ł ódź in Poland. She also holds a Master’s Degree in World Languages, Literature, and Linguistics from West Virginia University in the United States. Her research has focused on the teaching of English and Spanish as second languages, and literary analyses with an interdisciplinary perspective. In a broader sense, her research interests span feminist literary criticism, migration studies, transnational literature, postcolonial studies, and gender studies. Her teaching experience at the university level has ranged from teaching English and Spanish to Latin American culture and introductory gender studies courses. Research topic For the EUTERPE Project: European Literatures and Gender from a Transnational Perspective, María Auxiliadora’s research analyzes how daily embodiments of transnational self-identified women serve as adaptation and survival strategies in the host countries, and how these same strategies may also represent a sense of autonomy, power, and resistance. The project focuses on the analysis of non-fictional autobiographical works written by transnational subjects who have migrated and resettled in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom to identify the different ways in which these embodiments challenge European belonging and identification. Contributions: Challenging European Identity: Representations of Female Transnational Experiences in Marrón by Rocío Quillahuaman Challenging the Idea of Europe: Representations of Female Transnational Experiences in Chérissa Iradukunda's Broken Object Previous Next

Uthara Geetha Uthara Geetha is a doctoral candidate at the University of Oviedo, Spain working on ‘The role of transnational literatures in the decolonization of understandings of gender within the European academe’. She was an Erasmus Mundus scholar (2019-21) of Gender Studies from University of York (UK) and University of Oviedo (Spain). She also holds a master’s degree in applied economics from Centre for Development Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her main research interest is on the intersections of gender with race, caste, and class inspired from her Dalit identity. In addition to her academic works, she also writes online articles on popular culture from a decolonial intersectional feminist perspective. Previous Next