(ANTI)COLONIAL SEAS

(Anti)Colonial Seas Symposium May 14 -15, 2026 Program

 Thursday, May 14 

Polygon Art Gallery 101 Carrie Cates Ct, North Vancouver, BC V7M 3J4

7 - 8:30pm                               

Nalo Hopkinson (Creative Writing, UBC), “Taking it Back: Reclaiming What Was Stolen”                                                                            

Moderated by Ayesha Hameed (Goldsmiths/ U Helsinki) 

Followed by a reception

Friday, May 15

Place of Many Trees School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, UBC - 6476 NW Marine Drive                          

9:00 - 9:30am                         Breakfast & Coffee

9:30 - 9:45am                         

Opening Remarks & Land/Seas Acknowledgement – Renisa Mawani (Sociology, UBC)                                               

9:45 - 10:15am                      

Aya Bseiso (Bahaleen), “Navigating a Weaponized Sea: The Energy Extraction Project Behind Gaza’s Maritime Blockade”  [via Zoom]                                              

Moderated by Kiran Sunar (Asian Studies, UBC)

10:15-11:15am                      

Samera Esmeir (Rhetoric, UC Berkeley) “On the Doubles of Territory”

Mae Miller-Likhethe (Global Studies, UC Santa Barbara) “A Most Capable Organizer: Mapping Intimate Arrivals, Maritime Radicalism, and the Politics of Solidarity in the Memoir of Amir Haider Khan”

Moderated by Ayesha Chaudhry (Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice, UBC)

11:15-11:30am                      Coffee/ Tea

11:30-12:30pm                      

Vasuki Nesiah (Gallatin, NYU) TBA

Michelle McKinley (Law, U Oregon), "New Worlds, Transoceanic Households: Slavery, Gender, and the Early Modern Seas"

Moderated by Jasbir Puar (Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice, UBC) 

12:30-1:30pm                        

Ayesha Hameed (Goldsmiths/ U Helsinki) TBA

Mikki Stelder (U Amsterdam), “Attending to the Leusden” [Video Essay w/ CC description]

Moderated by Sadia Shirazi (Art History, Visual Art, and Theory, UBC)

1:30-2:15                Lunch by Tayybeh

2:30-3:15                

Museum of Anthropology – Visit to “I Use My Haida Eyes: The History Robes of Jut-ke-

Nay–Hazel Wilson” (Curated by ɬəkʷəlqinəm - Jordan Wilson) 

3:30-5:15                

Oceans as Archives Book Panel 

Mikki Stelder (U Amsterdam) & Renisa Mawani (Sociology, UBC)

Rachel yacaaʔał George (Indigenous Studies, U Victoria), “Kincentric Knowing: Coastal Indigenous Relationality as Resistance”

Diyan Achjadi (Emily Carr), “The Space of Water”

Alice Te Punga Somerville (English, UBC), “Imagining All That Mountain/Invisible Beneath: Pacific Writing, Continental Shelves”

Moderated by Shirin Barol (Sociology, UBC)

5:15-5:30                Closing Discussion 

Download the Symposium Program

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