The DIVERSITAS workshop brings together scholars from the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa), the University of Mumbai (India), the Centre for Advanced Studies (CASII) (Bhuj, India) and the School of Linguistics and Cultural Studies at Oldenburg University (Germany), as well as administrative staff from Oldenburg University’s International Student Office (ISO).

Participants will first provide an overview of Diversity Studies and processes of internationalization at their respective home universities.

In small groups, participants will then formulate program ideas and objectives for co-operative future projects. In a final step, the results of these group-discussions will serve as the basis for a joint proposal draft that will be presented to the Dean of Faculty III and the President of Oldenburg University and will be further developed for submission at appropriate funding organizations.

In a globalized world it is almost impossible to clearly differentiate between distinct cultures. Rather, cultural artifacts (such as literature, film, music, as well as material objects of daily life) are more and more likely to be the products of transnational alliances, knowledge, practices, and spaces. As a consequence of these global developments individual and group identities and subjectivities are hybrid, multifaceted, unstable, and contradictory.

This course sheds a critical light on transnational spaces and hybrid selves by way of three case studies. Professors Melissa Steyn, Jill Bradbury, and Bheki Peterson will focus on "Trajectories of Identity in Space and Time" from a South African perspective. Professor Sridhar Rajeswaran will then theorize "Postcolonial Cultural Hybridities" and Proffessor Nilufer Bharucha will address "Cultural Hybridity in Indian Literature and Cinema."

This course is open to all "Fachmaster"-students of Fakultät III. It counts as a full Master module and will be accredited with 15 KPs. Detailed information on course requirements will be communicated at the first meeting of the course.