Colonialism, Racism, and Human Dignity: On the Global Novel in an Age of Refugees

Drawing on his current book project, Tales of Unsettlement, in this paper Mani situates the figure of the refugee and the forced migrant at the center of contemporary novels. Mani proposes that “refugee” narratives reveal much more than just the plight and flight of refugees, which has largely been the focus of contemporary studies. Instead, Mani argues that novels of refuge open doors to reframe our thinking of histories of European colonialism and its morphed manifestations in contemporary Europe. Moving narratives of refuge from a marginal to a central space, Mani underlines, opens up possibilities of thinking of the European novel as a site of new political and aesthetic examination of race-, religion-, caste- and class-based discriminations in the contemporary era. 

B. VENKAT MANI is Professor of German and World Literatures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the USA. He was former director of Center for South Asia and Center for Global Studies at UW-Madison. He is currently the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s Reimar Lüst Fellow (2025-26) at the German National Literary Archives (DLA-Marbach) in Germany, where he is working on his current book project. His publications include Cosmopolitical Claims (2007), Recoding World Literature (2017; winner of MLA and GSA awards for best book in German Studies), and as editor A Companion to World Literature (2020).

Paul Nolte, Freie Universität Berlin, will moderate the event. He is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History and chair of the Berlin Program’s Academic Advisory Committee. Read more

The German Studies Association (GSA) is the Berlin Program's cooperation partner and co-sponsor.

DATE & TIME: November 18, 2025, 16-18 h followed by a reception 18-19  h

LOCATION: FU Berlin, Ehrenbergstr. 26/28, 14195 Berlin, Room 009

REGISTRATION: Please register for the in-person event by Nov 10 via email bprogram@zedat.fu-berlin.de

LANGUAGE: The lecture will be in English; the discussion in English & German

CONSENT:  By attending, you consent the possibility of appearing in our publicity materials.