Dr. Mutlu Ergün-Hamaz
Enter the Pluriverse: Racialization, Critical Whiteness & Decoloniality – An Introduction
Seminar, English/Deutsch, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
Tuesdays, 14-16 h, weekly, starts 25.10.2022, Hardenbergstr. 33, room 004

Registration starts 17.10.2022 via Moodle: https://moodle.udk-berlin.de/moodle/course/view.php?id=1660
Moodle Einschreibeschlüssel / Moodle Enrollment Key: pluriverse

"Enter the Pluriverse: Racialization, Critical Whiteness & Decoloniality – An Introduction" gives an overview of concepts such as "Race" but also its entanglements with social constructs such as class, (cis-)gender, sexuality etc. The seminar explores the socio-historical processes of racialization and its effects on culture, science, art and identities and looks into critiques of "Western" theories of knowledge. Additionally, the seminar explores the socio-psychological effects of racialized cultures on the individual, thereby also providing tools for a critical self-reflection in particular for those positioned as "White". (BIPOC students also have the opportunity to explore their personal history of racialization in the safer space of the monthly workshop series "Narrative Empowerment" independently from the Studium Generale provided by the diversity & anti-discrimination officer of the UdK).
Finally, the seminar examines the concept of decoloniality, moving away from "Western" theories of knowledge towards an epistemological pluriverse.

Requirements for the ungraded Studium Generale credits: regular and active participation.

Mutlu Ergün-Hamaz is the diversity & anti-discrimination manager at the University of Arts Berlin. Next to his part-time job as diversity manager, Ergün-Hamaz is an author, and currently lives as a parent, consultant, performer, trainer and social researcher in Berlin. Since 2001, Ergün-Hamaz has been a member of the anti-racist NGO Phoenix e.V. and works as White-Awareness and Empowerment trainer. His research focuses on racialisation and empowerment in Germany. Ergün-Hamaz received his PhD from the London School of Economics, Sociology Department in 2021. The title of his dissertation is: “Dominance & Resistance - Narratives and Re-Imaginations of Racialization, Empowerment and Humanness in Germany”.
Between 2004 and 2006, Ergün-Hamaz organised the reading series “a thousand words deep” together with Deniz Utlu, which offered authors and musicians of colour a platform for their art. Between 2010 and 2020 he was also co-editor for the edition insurrection notes of Unrast Verlag, where authors of colour can publish their prose. Between 2004 and 2020 he worked as an editor at the cultural and social magazine freitext. Together with Noah Sow he developed the anti-racist Critical Whiteness comedy roadshow "Edutainment-Attack!" with which he successfully toured Germany from 2008 to 2012. In May 2010 his book “Kara Günlük – The Secret Diaries of Sesperado” was published. In 2022 he received the working grant for authors from the city of Berlin.