Conference "Landscapes of In/Justice"

About:

The conference “Landscapes of In/Justice” examines landscapes as sites where matters of justice and injustice are negotiated and critically engages with how these spaces are produced. The event will discuss landscapes as both material expressions of in/equality—where in/justices become materially present and are discursively inscribed— and as strategic political and cultural instruments through which justice and injustice are perpetuated, but also contested and resisted. Bringing together three invited speakers, we are particularly interested in how landscapes are represented and how literature, art and culture shape our understanding of these spaces. We will approach these questions through engagement with different fields, including Black Studies, Indigenous Studies, Settler-Colonial Studies and the Environmental Humanities.

Program:

10:00	Welcome and Conference Opening
10:30 - 10:50	Poster Presentations: “Narrating Indigenous and Settler-Colonial Land Relations on Turtle Island”
10:50 - 11:00	Coffee Break
11:00 - 12:30	Keynote: Tamatoa Tepuhiarii “Rethinking Landscape of In/Justice(s) in Māòhi Nui/French Polynesia”
12:30 - 13:30	Lunch (on your own)
13:30 - 13:50	Poster Presentations: “Sacrifice Zones and Disaster Landscapes: Ecocriticism and Environmental Justice”
13:50 - 14:00	Coffee Break
14:00 - 15:30	Keynote: Valerie Fryer-Davis “Fear, Unease, and Hope: Invoking Decolonial Cartographies at the Völklinger Hütte”
15:30 - 16:00	Coffee Break
16:00 - 16:20	Poster Presentation: “Nature, Land, and Wilderness in African American Writing”
16:20 - 16:30	Coffee Break
16:30 - 18:00	Keynote: Chet’la Sebree: “Root(les)s: Intergenerational Migration and Inheritance”
18:00	Conference Closing

Confirmed speakers:

Valerie Fryer-Davis (Arcadia University): “Fear, Unease, and Hope: Invoking Decolonial Cartographies at the Völklinger Hütte”

In the summer of 2025, the World Heritage Site Völklinger Hütte (Völkingen Ironworks) curated an art exhibit called “The True Size of Africa” that explored the colonial history of Africa and the role the Hütte played in that history. Dr. Fryer-Davis’ talk explores how artists from the exhibit such as Memory Biwa and The Kongo Astronauts evoke feelings of unease, fear, and hope in their German audience as they trace the life cycle of iron ore. Through these affects the installations link the sacrifice zone of the Hütte to those in Africa to explore how recovery from environmental destruction in the Global North must contend with colonial histories of extraction in the Global South.

Valerie Fryer-Davis (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Global Literature at Arcadia University. Her research specialty is in decolonial, trans, and black literature and theory, with an emphasis on Subsaharan Africa and the Caribbean. She has published the monograph Decolonizing Affect: Black Trans Strategies of Resistance, articles in the Journal of Critical Race Inquiry on Black trans affect and Memory Studies, and on queer and accessible Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) pedagogy.

Chet’la Sebree (George Washington University): “Root(les)s: Intergenerational Migration and Inheritance”

In this talk, Chet'la Sebree will discuss the genesis of “Partus Sequitur Ventrem” and “Root(les)s: A Genealogy,” two essays in her debut essay collection, Turn (W)here: A Geography of Home, in which she grapples with home, inheritance, and belonging through domestic and international travel as a Black American woman. The two essays track her maternal and paternal relationship to land and homemaking—tracking the impact of enslavement, racist legislation, and the Great Migration.

Chet'la Sebree is the author of the debut essay collection Turn (W)here: A Geography of Home as well three award-winning poetry collections—Blue Opening, Field Study, and Mistress. She’s an associate professor of English at George Washington University and teaches in Randolph College’s MFA in Creative Writing program.

Tamatoa Tepuhiarii (University of Hamburg): “Rethinking Landscape of In/Justice(s) in Māòhi Nui/French Polynesia”

French nuclear testing transformed Māòhi Nui/French Polynesia into a landscape where environmental contamination, colonial governance, and Indigenous resistance remain deeply intertwined. This keynote explores how Indigenous narratives reshape our understanding of (in)justice by foregrounding lived experience, epistemic justice, and decolonial pathways for addressing the enduring legacies of the nuclear effects.

Tamatoa Tepuhiarii is a Māòhi research associate (from Māòhi Nui/French Polynesia) and a PhD candidate at the University of Hamburg (Institute of Geography, Germany). His research focuses on Indigenous narratives surrounding the “Nuclear world” within the framework of the common research project “Nuclear Justice and Gender in the Sea of Islands.”

Venue:

University of Potsdam, Campus Neues Palais, foyer of building 8. For directions, please see the campus map below. 

In an effort to reduce waste, we encourage attendees to bring their own reusable water bottles and/or coffee mugs. Paper cups will also be available on-site, and light refreshments will be provided.

Conference organizers:

Verena Adamik, Frederike Offizier, Alisa Preusser

Please contact Frederike Offizier if you are interested in this event and have any questions about attendance, venue, accessibility, etc.