Afrasian Futures is a series of four cutting-edge lectures that mark the conclusion Africa’s Asian Options (AFRASO), a major transdiciplinary research  project at Goethe University Frankfurt that has investigated transregional African-Asian interactions and entanglements since 2013. The lecture series casts a critical eye on concepts and terminologies habitually employed in current research on African-Asian relations and explores future perspectives of African-Asian political, social, economic and cultural interactions in a world that has on the one hand become more multipolar and globalized, but that is characterized by a wide-spread return of nationalist and populist politics on the other. Topics covered in the lecture series include new perspectives on critical geopolitics; East African literary responses to China’s past and present involvement in the “Swahili Seas”; past, present and future dynamics of Afro-Asian solidarity; and the future of South-South cooperation.

The Lectures and dates:

25 October 2018

Gerard Toal (Washington):
Theorizing Geopolitics Amidst Intense Spatial Crises

15 November 2018

Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (Nairobi/Berlin):
The Return of the Admiral: Re-fashioning Swahili waters in the 'Dragonfly Sea'

6 December 2018

Yoon Jung Park (Washington):
Afro-Asian Solidarities to Afrasian Spaces and Identities? Exploring the Limits of Afrasia

31 January  2019

Emma Mawdsley (Cambridge):
South-South Cooperation and Africa-Asia relations in the Decade Ahead: The Challenges of Success

All lectures take place from  6.15 to 8.00 pm at room IG 411, ground floor of the Main Building at Campus Westend of the Goethe University, Norbert-Wollheim-Platz 1, 60323 Frankfurt