Germany, Antisemitism, and Blackness By Sa’ed Atshan and Katharina Galor Just recently, Germany has made the significant step in acknowledging its colonial genocide in Namibia. It has stunned the world with its generosity by promising more than one billion dollars to support development projects that will benefit the communities related Read more
‘Nature’ and ‘Culture’: How We Perceive the World and Why This Should Change By Kocku von Stuckrad I just finished reading Helen Macdonald’s excellent new book, Vesper Flights. This collection of short stories about how we experience, approach, and interact with the worlds of other animals and plants masterfully reveals Read more
Blue Religion By Justine M. Bakker “Based on my extremely blurry and perhaps unreliable recollection that he once told me so,” writes David Chidester in his contribution to With This Root About My Person, a recently published collection of essays dedicated to Charles H. Long,, “I have reason to believe Read more
Remembering and Forgetting Genocide in Germany By Kocku von Stuckrad Most of history is forgetting. In fact, as Paul Ricoeur reminds us: “Forgetting is the emblem of the vulnerability of the historical condition taken as a whole” (p. 284). Remembering, then, is an active engagement with the past to provide Read more
Offshore: Descending into the Blue Humanities By Justine M. Bakker Purely coincidently, I started writing this blog on “World Octopus Day,” which occurs every year on October 8—a date that fits the eight-armed creature so remarkably well that one wonders if it has ever been otherwise. It turns out it Read more
Gandhi as Socially Conservative Dissident: Pondering the Contradiction 150 Years On By John J. Thatamanil Scholars of Mohandas Gandhi confront a curious and persistent paradox in their studies of this historical giant born a 150 years ago this month (October 2, 1869). The most radical anti-colonial activist-thinker of his time Read more
Beyond Epistemicide: Toward Multiple Forms of Knowledge by Joram Tarusarira Knowledge production, authentication, and dissemination require transcending a universal, fundamentalist[1] canon of thought that privileges one knowledge system at the expense of others. With modernity, a particular knowledge system came to occupy and dominate the academy and claim universality, neutrality, Read more
Following Whitney A. Bauman’s Meaningful Flesh, we are happy to announce another contribution for the Counterpoint community, also published with Punctum Books. Queer Ancient Ways by Zairong Xiang, member of our Advisory Board, will be out in fall. Congratulations! Queer Ancient Ways advocates a profound unlearning of colonial/modern categories as Read more