Encounters: Gayatri Spivak

'Righting Wrongs' with one of the world's most influential thinkers Philosopher, literary theorist, and radical pedagogue, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak returns to West Den Haag for a special symposium rethinking what is possibly to say and do about justice, language, and the colonial present. Taking its title from Spivak's essay 'Righting Wrongs', the symposium confronts the central aporia of human rights discourse: that the act of ‘righting wrongs' inevitably carries the alibi of supervisory benevolence, reproducing the very structures it claims to overcome. With a focus on histories and presences of migration in The Netherlands and The Hague, this two-day symposium will be an experiment in thinking through the how to understand and address the migrant condition together. Participants are invited to sit with contradictions rather than resolve them, supplementing rights with an education that destabilazes the presumption that some are expected or responsible to right the wrongs of others. This program offers a rare chance to engage directly with Spivak’s work. Attendees should expect an atmosphere of respectful rigor and close attention to detail. They should also be prepared for discomfort, as the symposium will challenge closely held beliefs and understandings. This gathering, which includes open public discussions, and intensive workshops, prepares for a full symposium in 2027 and welcomes all who are willing to engage in the slow, uncoercive rearrangement of desires, in an atmosphere of respectful rigour and openness to discomforting questions. Program: Thursday 26.11.2026 17:00 — 18:30 Encounter: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak with Baruch Gottlieb: ‘Righting Wrongs’ Reflecting on the Essay written in 2004 in which Spivak questions the purported benevolence in the prevailing approaches to supporting development and human rights in the world at large, and affirms her commitment to the humanities and to pedagogy. -- Program: Friday 27.11.2026 11:00 — 12:30 Discussion: Viken Berberian with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: ‘Migrations’ Viken Berberian will lead a discussion with autobiographical reflections on displacement, diaspora and the changing place of the experience of migration in his storytelling. 12:30 — 13:45 Lunch break 14:00 — 16:00 Conversations: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak with Migrant Domestic Workers FNV and allies Prof. Spivak will meet a group of migrant domestic workers living in the Netherlands and their allies, to hear their stories, and learn how to learn with them. 16:00 — 16:30 Break 16:30 — 19:00 Plenary: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak with Oluwaseun Akinfenwa and Patrizio Rotondo: ‘Spivak’s Gramsci and African subalternity’ The notion of the subaltern, with which Prof. Spivak inaugurated what is sometimes called post-colonial studies, originates in the writings of communist Antonio Gramsci. In this session Prof. Spivak will discuss the research of two young scholars engaging with her work, with Gramsci and subaltern subjects. 19:00 End