Tue
05
May
Seminars and Conferences
The Mediterranean and Critical Shipwrecks | By Iain Chambers
The meeting on 5 May 2026 at 4:00 pm is part of the Beyond Inhabitation Lab seminar series (Spring 2026), featuring Iain Chambers as speaker, AbdouMaliq Simone as discussant, and chaired by Caterina Ciarleglio.
Abstract
Who has the right to narrate, map and explain the Mediterranean?
Answering requires removing critical practices from the calculations of Western objectivity and relocating them within currents that constitute a historical density and cultural complexity that cannot be reduced to a single language or perspective, however universal its claims may be.
Renegotiating the Mediterranean, which is not automatically authorised by Occidental lexicons, leads to questioning and interrupting the linearity of the empty, homogeneous spacetime of “progress”. Here, the colonial clock is confronted with the temporalities and rhythms of other histories and lives.
Biography
Iain Chambers is an independent writer and researcher. He previously taught Mediterranean, cultural and postcolonial studies at the University of Naples, L'Orientale. His latest books are Lampedusa/Gaza. L’orologio coloniale e i linguaggi interrotti (2025) andThe Mediterranean Question (2025), co-authored with Marta Cariello. He writes regularly for the Italian daily IlManifesto.
To participate in person or online, you must register at this link.
For more information about Beyond Inhabitation Lab seminar series Spring 2026 click here.
The meeting is part of the Beyond Inhabitation Lab seminar series Spring 2026.
The Beyond Inhabitation Lab provides an infrastructure to facilitate a process of collective study around the shifting terrain and politics of inhabitation globally, and is directed by Michele Lancione and AbdouMaliq Simone.
Abstract
Who has the right to narrate, map and explain the Mediterranean?
Answering requires removing critical practices from the calculations of Western objectivity and relocating them within currents that constitute a historical density and cultural complexity that cannot be reduced to a single language or perspective, however universal its claims may be.
Renegotiating the Mediterranean, which is not automatically authorised by Occidental lexicons, leads to questioning and interrupting the linearity of the empty, homogeneous spacetime of “progress”. Here, the colonial clock is confronted with the temporalities and rhythms of other histories and lives.
Biography
Iain Chambers is an independent writer and researcher. He previously taught Mediterranean, cultural and postcolonial studies at the University of Naples, L'Orientale. His latest books are Lampedusa/Gaza. L’orologio coloniale e i linguaggi interrotti (2025) andThe Mediterranean Question (2025), co-authored with Marta Cariello. He writes regularly for the Italian daily IlManifesto.
To participate in person or online, you must register at this link.
For more information about Beyond Inhabitation Lab seminar series Spring 2026 click here.
The meeting is part of the Beyond Inhabitation Lab seminar series Spring 2026.
The Beyond Inhabitation Lab provides an infrastructure to facilitate a process of collective study around the shifting terrain and politics of inhabitation globally, and is directed by Michele Lancione and AbdouMaliq Simone.