Unvoluntary Subjects of Enlightenment: The Postcolonial Conundrum

About the event

The opening talk examines how postcolonial subjects became entangled in Enlightenment narratives of reason, progress, and modernity not through voluntary adoption, but through coercive incorporation into imperial projects. It explores how Enlightenment ideals functioned less as universal promises and more as disciplinary demands that reshaped colonized peoples’ social, political, and ethical horizons. By focusing on how modernity was imposed rather than chosen, the talk highlights the ambivalent legacy of Enlightenment norms in postcolonial life: at once a language of emancipation and a structure of domination. Ultimately, the analysis invites a reconsideration of what it means to inhabit Enlightenment when its terms were never offered as a choice.