In this workshop, the marks of academically set and university-political structures that implicitly produce exclusions are (historically) traced in order to find ways to further open up and carefully think about the meanings of 'decolonization' and universities and to initiate other (university) politics in conjunction with the production of ‘knowledge’.

In the process, traces of these histories, that are still effective, like those related to anti-Semitism, are examined and looked at, with view to a different future – this can be done, for example, through discussing unacknowledged and ‘notknown’ (hir-)’stories' and (con-)texts. It aims at focusing on the past, in order not to forget, and to acknowledge the pain and to discuss its possible traces and parallels to today's developments in more depth, including the question of how we want to understand 'critique' as ‘thought’. The question is also how 'knowledge' was and is represented, and that knowledge, also in Europe until today, is and remains strongly shaped by otherness and other, marginalized positions. A central, long-standing goal is also, and especially so in the German context, to prevent marginalized and racialized 'groups' from being discursively played off against each other.

Instead, the aim is to strengthen alliances and other visions that have always been part of the theoretical and artistic reflections of decolonial and critical thinkers in Germany and all over the world.

'Decolonization' is, a term that has recently gained renewed use in scholarly and non-scholarly debates, and that became vocal worldwide and especially in the countries of the global South at least since 2015, such as the Rhodes Must Fall movement and the critique of caste privilege in the education system in India;

however, the term has now become a buzz word, and is in danger of losing its important meaning. To emphasize its interventionist, critical character, some scholars now also speak of anti-colonial approaches instead.

Behind these debates are three interlocking considerations that are central to the further development of ‘universities’ as established knowledge-systems and glocal institutions of knowledge production. These are, first, that universities must confront the legacy of their colonial structures, also within their respective countries and contexts, which are part of their history, teaching, and research. BIPOC and ‘minority’ students, lecturers and researchers are 'traditionally' (historically driven), not least as a consequence of such conditions of neglect and thoughtlessness, relatively underrepresented in universities and other institutions of academic learning. Furthermore, it is important to work towards changing the curricula of the various disciplines in such a way that colonial, anti-Semitic and racist thought patterns and texts are not repeated in them, so that a productive practice of relearning can begin in teaching and research that takes into account as many ambivalences and aporias as possible, and yet is still able to show ways of thought in teaching and research that can act by taking into account other historical and contemporary models of knowledge formation and production – such as the interventions and theorizations of Jewish and Black thinkers, scholars, and intellectuals.

The further, long-term attention of the workshop-Un-Doing-Structures in Theory & Practice, is thus also on the formation of alliances and coalitions, for example with other queer and feminist centers, which can work together, against the background of these considerations, also in the form of small working groups and can go towards change in the formations of theory & practice of ‘knowledge’ and its (institutional) production.

The workshop Un-Doing-Structures in Theory & Practice addresses in particular graduate students, pre-docs, post-docs, post-doctoral researchers, and professors across disciplines who have already engaged with and/or come into contact with these issues and who want to continue to do so within a larger framework that aims at change on a theoretical and practice-oriented level.