Conference Announcement: 1.10.-2.10.2025 Resisting the Backlash: Defending Intersectional, Decolonial, and Postcolonial Feminisms

Join us for an international conference that will delve into the growing backlash against gender, queer, intersectional, decolonial, and postcolonial studies from 1.10. until 2.10.2025. This academic event aims to critically examine the forces undermining these fields and discuss strategies for countering challenges across academic, activist, policy, journalistic, artistic and other public spheres.

At both the SLUB Open Science Lab and at the Main Conference Room of the Faculty of Economics (Festsaal der Fakultät Wirtschaftswissenschaften) at the TU Dresden, the conference will host paper presenters, as well as artist and panelists invited for the plenaries, from more than 12 different countries. 

We are particularly interested in reflecting on ongoing resistance to anti-gender movements and engaging with strategies for reimagining democracy through the lenses of intersectional, decolonial, and postcolonial feminisms. We will discuss the notions and scope of the backlash against these forms of scholarship, the impact on academic institutions, teaching, and public discourse, as well as intersectional responses from marginalized communities and scholars. We will explore concrete strategies for resistance and solidarity in the face of institutional and political pressures, the role of extractivism in the gender backlash scenario, and both digital and non-digital forms of backlash. Additionally, we will discuss the role of international solidarity networks in reimagining democracy through gender lenses.

For registration, please send your name and affiliation to project.pushbacklash@tu-dresden.de

Please find the program of the conference here. 

Organization: Nikita Dhawan, Camila Nobrega Rabello Alves, Natalia Fomina, Hanna Al-Taher, Leyla Sophie Gleissner, Clara Jacobi. 

Support team: Eleonora Hummel, Gwendal Lamay, Johannes Holzhausen, Miko Selma Großmann, Donna Pelivan. 

Documentation: Nicky Böhm and Ziad Fayed.

Hosted by:

The Chair in Political Theory and History of Ideas at the Technical University of Dresden, in the context of the EU-funded project PushBackLash: Anti-Gender Backlash and Democratic Pushback 

In cooperation with:

The Equal Opportunities Office of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences