Invited Keynotes, Lectures & Conferences

Dehumanisation: Race, Religion and the European Witch Hunts. PKC Millins laureate keynote lecture. Witch Hunts, Race, & the Persecution of Women, Antiquity to the 21^st Century. Florence 14-15 February 2023 .

Antisemitism and Islamophobia as Forms of Dehumanisation: The European Problem. European Conference on Politics and Gender. University of Ljubljana Slovenia. 6-8 July 2022.

European Ontologies: Blacks, Jews and White Supremacy – A Reply to Mills. A Tribute to Charles Mills – Spinoza Symposium. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam. June 16-17 2022.

Islamophobia and the Politics of Replacement. Invited Respondent to Mattias Gardell for The Politics of Replacement. Demographic Fears, Conspiracy Theories, and Race Wars Conference. Amsterdam. 28-29 June 2021.

Good Jew, Bad Jew: ‘Managing’ Europe’s Others. Invited Lecture for Lecture Series: Memory Politics and Minority Managements in Contemporary Europe Freie Universitat Berlin, Berlin Graduate School: Muslim Cultures and Societies. May 4^th2021.

The masked differences of race, religion and secularism: Europe’s post-Shoah silence. Invited Keynote for Conceptualising Difference Conference. Aberdeen University. April 2021.

Thinking Race and Religion. Masterclass. Sophia, Belgisch Netwerk voor Genderstudies. March 16^th 2021. https://www.sophia.be/nl/event/masterclass-thinking-race-and-religion-with-prof-dr-anya-topolski-2/.

Rejecting the Rhetoric of Uniqueness: The First Step Towards Semitic Solidarity. Invited Lecture for Configurations of Race,R eligion and Language in Modern Knowledge. Institute of Islamic Studies at the Freie Universitat Berlin, Berlin Graduate School: Muslim Cultures and Societies. June 6th 2019.

Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: The Real Judeo-Christian Heritage. Invited Keynote Lecture for European Academy on Religion and Society. VU Amsterdam, 17-18^th October 2019.

Race, Religion, Sex: Hidden Histories, Concealed Constellations, Invisible Injustice Invited Keynote Lecture for Gender, Race, Religion: Deconstructing Regimes of Invisibility, European Society of Women in Theological Research (ESWTR). KU Leuven, 12-15 September 2019

Race, Religion and Refugees: Arendt’s Ambiguous Analysis of Nation- States. Invited Keynote Lecture for Hannah Arendt: Challenges of Plurality. Paderborn University. 13th – 15th December 2018

The dangerous discourse of the ‘Judeo-Christian’ myth: Masking the race-religion constellation in Europe. Invited Lecture  for Edward Said Lecture Series – 40 years after ‘Orientalism’– Configurations of Knowledge/Power today. Freie Universitat Berlin, Berlin Graduate School: Muslim Cultures and Societies. November 1 2018.

The Race-Religion Constellation Research Presentation. Race, Religion, Secularism RRS Conference Network Launch, UvA Amsterdam and Radboud Nijmegen. Oct 21-23 2018.

Women & Power Response to Mary Beard.  Humanities Book Project. Radboud University Nijmegen. August 23rd 2018

A Changing Same? Imagining Diasporic Polities beyond the Race-State.  Shifting the Geography of Reason XV: Ways of Knowing, Past and Present . Caribbean Philosophical Association (CPA) & La Société sénégalaise de philosophie (SOSEPHI) at Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (UCAD) Dakar, Sénégal – June 20–22, 2018

Black Radical Thought Summer School with dr. Tony Bogues. The Black Archive, Amsterdam July 16th to July 22^nd.

Secularism, Multiculturalism & Religion. OZSW Political Philosophy Winter School Lecture. Radboud University, January 19^th 2018.

Contesting the Categories of Race, Religion and the Secular. Europe Contested. Radboud University Nijmegen. November 23-25 2017.

Good Jew, Bad Jew … Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: “Managing” Europe’s Others. Jewish Friends. Contemporary Figures of the Jew. Freie Universitat Berlin. 16-19 October 2017 (Invited).

‘Judeo-Christian’ Europe’s Practice of Divide et Impera: Masking the Race-Religion Constellation’. Critique of Religion; Framing Jews and Muslims in Public Debate and Political Theory Today, in the Light of the Genealogies of Such Framing. University of Amsterdam, Nl, 21-24 June 2017. (Invited)

The Race-Religion Constellation: Language, Liberation and Colonialism. Modernités Contestées – Modernities Contested. Universite Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD), Dakar, Senegal. May 27-29 2017.

Is Israel Europe’s Prodigal Son? Jewishness Unveils the Limits of the Westphalian Race-State. Critical Theory in the Humanities Resonances of the Work of Judith Butler.  Vrij Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands. April 5-8 2017.

A Genealogy of the ‘Judeo-Christian’ Signifier: A Tale of Europe’s Identity Crisis Arab-Jewish Engagements on “Regionalism and Borders”. Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue, Vienna, Austria. December 1-4 2016. (Invited)

Conceptualising Europe’s Race-Religion Constellation. Philosophy of ‘Race’ and Racism. Oxford University, UK, 26-28 June 2016.

Rethinking Political Community. A Response to Brian Klug’s Revisiting ‘Je Suis Charlie’: Framings, Freedoms and Frictions. Leuven, KUL, May 11 2016.

Antisemitism and Islamophobia: Managing Europe’s Others, Then and Now. Ethnicity, Race, and Racism Seminar, Edge Hill University, UK. 25 September 2015.

Towards a European Communitas: a Political Identity Beyond Exclusion. Immunity and Modernity: Picturing Threat & Protection. KU Leuven. May 27-29^th 2015.

A Genealogy of the ‘Judeo-Christian’ Signifier: A Tale of Europe’s Identity Crisis. HEIRS conference ‘History, Memory and European Integration’. Maastricht University, Netherlands. June 5-6^th 2014.

A Tale of Europe’s Identity Crisis by Way of the ‘Judeo-Christian’ Signifier. Europe, The Very Idea: Exploring Europe as a Philosophical Concept and Project Bristol University, UK. May 9-10^th 2014.

The ‘Judeo-Christian’ Tradition A Genealogy of Europe’s Identity Crisis. Is there a Judeo-Christian Tradition?University of Antwerp, Belgium. February 12-13^th 2014.

The Islamophobic Inheritance of the Resurrected Saint Paul: From F.C. Baur’s Judeo-Christianity to Badiou and Žižek’s Event. Understanding the ‘Muslim question’. Towards a genealogy of multiculturalism and the minority question in the post WWII Western-Europe. Freie Universität Berlin–Blankensee Colloquia. Jan 8-9 2014.

London Critical Theory Summer School. Birkbeck College, UK. July 1-12 2013.

Challenging the Frame of ‘The Jewish Question’: The Problem that is Fortress Europa K.U.Leuven-Nijmijgen Covenant. Valbeek, Belgium. June7-8^th 2013.

Challenging the Frame of ‘The Jewish Question’: The Problem that is Festung Europa Understanding the ‘Muslim question’. Freie Universität Berlin–Blankensee Colloquia. May 31^st -June 1^st 2013.

When one is attacked as a Jew … one must respond as an Oriental: Hannah Arendt and Edward Said in a Semitic Dialogue Hannah Arendt Circle, Antwerp, Belgium May 21^st 23^rd 2013.

The Future of Religious Pluralism in Europe. International Workshop at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities. Essen, Germany. 17-18 May 2013.

Tzedekah: The True Religion of Spinoza’s Tractatus International Conference ‘The Radical Enlightenment: The Big Picture and its Details’ Free University Brussels Thursday 16 – Friday 17 May 2013.

Edward Said Memorial. Centre for the Humanities, Utrecht University. April 2013.

The Tractatus is a Christian-European, not a Jewish, Event: Spinoza on True Religion. L’actualité du Tractatus de Spinoza et la question théologico-politique Centre de théorie politique, Université Libre de Bruxelles January 23-25^th 2013.

Global Justice without Global Democracy? A Response to Andrea Sangiovanni’s paper Solidarity in the EUGlobal Justice and International Economic Institutions Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven August 29-30^th 2012.

Was European Multiculturalism Destined To Fail? Debating Multiculturalism Dialogue Society, Istanbul TurkeyMay 3-5^th 2012.

International PhD School Tracing Colonialism and Orientalism in Social and Political Thought funded by European Research Council (ERC) as part of the OECUMENE Project, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. 8 February 2012.

Antisemitism Yesterday, Islamophobia Today: Some Reflections on European Exclusion From Hannah Arendt Ethnic and Pluralism Studies Conference University of Toronto, Canada January 26-7 2012.

An Ethics of Relationality: Destabilising the Genocidal Frame of Us vs. Them. Preventing Genocide University of Antwerp, Belgium. November 24-5^th 2011.

Deconstruction Exclusions: Response To J. Manemann’s “Political Theology in a Globalising World”. Theology Colloquium. Leuven, Belgium. May 4^th 2011.

Drones Can’t Bring About Peace: Only Ethics Can ! 3TU Ethics Conference. University of Utrecht, Netherlands. April 13^th 2011.

The Case of the Kunduz Airstrike: Moral Responsibility in the Military. Moral  Responsibility: Analytic Approaches, Substantive Accounts and Case Studies. University of Ghent, Belgium. 18-19 October 2010.

Refusing to Wait for the Political Moment: An Alternative Judaic Reality. Waiting For the Political Moment. Universiteit Utrecht & Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands. June 16-20^th 2010.

Military Ethics Without Banisters: A Critique of Just War Theory. War and Peace: An Interdisciplinary Conference. Prague, Czech Republic. May 2010.

Peacekeeping: The ‘Ethical’ Warfare of the Future?. Erasmus Intensive Programme on Cosmopolitanism, peace and conflict with Judith Butler. Utrecht Universiteit. January 25-February 12^th, 2010.

On Tolerance & Freedom of Expression: A Response to Glen Newey. Centre for Ethics, Social & Political Philosophy. Leuven, Belgium. December 10th 2009.

Critical Reflections on Power, Exclusion & the Stranger: A Response to Etienne Balibar. A World Without Politics? Leuven, Belgium. September 18th 2009.

Introduction to a Roundtable on Gender & Politics. Centre for Ethics, Social & Political Philosophy. Leuven, Belgium. September 16th 2009.

Critical Reflections on Sari Nusseibeh’s Once Upon a Country. K.U.Leuven Think Tank on Territory, Rights and Identity. Leuven, Belgium. May 26th 2009.

Critical Reflections on Laclau’s On Populist Reason. K.U.Leuven-Nijmijgen Covenant. Nijmegen, Netherlands. January 23rd 2009.

Protestantism and Its Discontents: A Response To Helena Rosenblatt. In Search of A Lost Liberalism: Constant, Tocqueville and The Singularity of French Liberalism. International Conference at the Philosophy Faculty of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Dec 12-14th 2008.

The Plurality of Judgment: Arendt’s Agonistic Public Space. (Summer School 2008) Netherlands School for Research in Practical Philosophy & Centre for Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy. Leuven, Belgium, August 24-28 2008.

Responsible Freedom or Free Responsibility? Responsibility, God and Society: Theological Ethics in Dialogue.International Conference and Book Launching in the Theology Faculty of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. May 7-10 2008.

Empowering or Disempowering Power? Arendt vs Foucault. Foucault Graduate Spring School at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. March 17-21 2008.

Athens & Jerusalem: Hannah Arendt and Emmanuel Levinas in Dialogue.  Workshops in Political Theory at the Manchester Metropolitan University, England. September 3rd 2007.

Hannah Arendt: The Promise of the Political. Workshops in Political Theory at the Manchester Metropolitan University, England. September 4th 2007.

Working To Create Nomos?: A Response to Hans Lindahl. Citizenship and Cosmopolitanism in Hannah Arendt HIW, K.U.Leuven, Belgium. Friday Dec. 15^th 2006.

Is Levinas a Rabbi?: A Response to Sean Hand. Radical Passivity Colloquium: On Emmanuel Levinas Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, Nl. Friday Nov. 24^th 2006.

The Meaning and Origins of the Political: Reading Emmanuel Levinas’s ‘Peace and Proximity’. Levinas and the Political: First Annual North American Levinas Society (NALS) Conference at Purdue University, USA. May 12-15^th 2006.

Universal Political Messianism: A Dialogue with Emmanuel Levinas’ First Talmudic Reading. On the Outlook: Figures of the Messianic (Junior Scholars Conference) at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. May 10-11^th 2006.

From Ashes to Ashes: Emmanuel Levinas and the Reduction of Judaism. Erasmus European Intensive Program in Paris, France. September 5^th-16^th.

The Past as a Possible Obstacle to Poland’s Future: The Need for Forgiveness, Reconciliation and a Dialogue with the Jews of the Diaspora. International Conference ‘Eastern European Countries and the Challenges of Globalisation’ at the Adam Mickiewicza University in Poznan, Poland. Jan 23^rd 2003.

The Relationship between Judaism, Judaica, and the Western Philosophical Tradition Graduate Student Conference ‘The Western Philosophical Tradition and its Relationship to Other Philosophical Traditions’K.U.Leuven, Belgium.  Oct 24^th 2002.