Men on the Margins

(Kübra Özermis and Sabine Schülting)

In literature from the Anglophone and postcolonial worlds, there is a traceable increase of elaborate engagements with the portrayals of masculinities that go beyond the normative and hegemonic. They challenge traditional concepts of masculinities, and explore the impact of intersecting categories, such as race and class, on masculine hegemony and its alternative forms. At the same time, contemporary literary engagements with masculinities in the Anglophone sphere reveal a turn towards alternative, non-hegemonic forms of masculinites.

This two-day conference will explore, critically engage with, and discuss masculinities in postcolonial and decolonial texts and contexts. In particular, we will expand on how Black, Muslim, Arab, and Irish masculinities are portrayed, debated, and challenged – with queerness and non-heteronormativity posing a common theme throughout the conference.

Funded by the Women and Equal Opportunities Representative of the Department of Philosophy and the Humanities

Conference Programme

Friday, 20 June 2025

from 1 p.m.	Registration
2 p.m.	Kübra Özermiş (University of Potsdam): Welcoming remarks and introduction to “Men on the Margins”:
2.30 – 3.30 p.m.	Keynote 1:Elahe Haschemi Yekani (Humboldt University Berlin): Queer Aesthetics of Unbelonging: Masculinity, Race and Negative Affects in Brandon Taylor’s Real Life and Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
3.30 – 4 p.m.	Coffee Break
4. 30 – 5 p.m.	Panel 1: Negotiating Race and MasculinitiesBisola Joy Ajibade (Humboldt University Berlin): Shifting Faces, Shifting Masculinities in Igoni Barrett’s Blackass and Mohsin Hamid’s The Last White ManKarolina Kmita (University of Silesia): Unfolding the Margins: Reimagining Masculinity in Akwaeke Emezi’s The Death of Vivek Oji (2020)Eva Ries (University of Augsburg): Progressive Black Masculinities in Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Open Water (2021) and Small Worlds (2023)
6.30 p.m.	Conference Dinner

Saturday, 21 June 2025

9 – 11 a.m.	Panel 2: Arab and/or Muslim MasculinitiesEsra Mirze Santesso (University of Georgia): Muslim Masculinities in Guantanamo ComicsMartina Balassone (Sorbonne University & Ca’ Foscari University of Venice): Passing Through the Margins: Queer Arab Masculinities in Rabih Alameddine’s FictionShafinur Nahar (Universiti Brunei Darussalam): The Intersection of Identity: Muslim Masculinities in Southeast Asian Anglophone Narratives
11 – 11.30 a.m.	Coffee Break
11.30 a.m. – 12.30 p.m.	Keynote 2:Rehana Ahmed (Queen Mary University of London): A kinship across relentless divides’: Encountering British Muslim masculinities in recent work by Guy Gunaratne, Kamila Shamsie, and Preti Taneja
12.30 – 2 p.m.	Lunch
2 – 3.30 p.m.	Panel 3: Irish MasculinitiesDane Holt: Son(Son)nets (Trinity College Dublin): The Familial Elegy in the Work of Tony Harrison and Seamus HeaneyScott McKendry (Queen’s University Belfast): ‘I can / Never become your he-man’: Troubled Masculinity in the Poetry of Padraic FiaccMatthew Rice (Queen’s University Belfast): ‘The night is proletarian’: Writing Masculinity and the Factory Poem
3.30 – 4 p.m.	Coffee Break
4 – 4.30 p.m.	Conclusion
5 – 6 p.m.	Poetry Reading with Ozan Zakariya Keskinkiliç

Freie Universität Berlin
Institute for English Language and Literature
Seminarzentrum Otto-von-Simson-Straße 26

Room L115

Contact

Kübra Özermis kuebra.oezermis@uni-potsdam.de

Prof. Sabine Schülting sabine.schuelting@fu-berlin.deFor registration please contact Kübra Özermis