RSVP

Join Professors Djamila Ribeiro and Nadia Yala Kisukidi for a rich and thought-provoking dialogue between two Black women philosophers—one Brazilian, the other French of Congolese descent. Born from an unexpected encounter at New York University, this conversation explores their diasporic experiences on both sides of the Atlantic and examines their relationship with knowledge, activism, and the public debates shaping France and Brazil. Despite the distinctiveness of their voices, their reflections often return to the common threads of shared experiences. Together, they weave a multifaceted and dense African diasporic memory, drawing on themes of Blackness, feminism, empowerment, and the enduring legacy of coloniality. Most importantly, they emphasize the intellectual power of Black women, reminding us that Black history is not only a history of struggle but also a history of profound thought.

Biography

Nadia Yala Kisukidi is Associate Professor at the NYU French department. She was born in Brussels (Belgium). Agrégée, she taught in Switzerland (University of Geneva) and France (University of Paris 8 Vincennes Saint Denis) .She was vice-president of the Collège International de Philosophie (2014-2016) and fellow at the Institute for Ideas and imagination/ Columbia University (2022-23). Member of the editorial committee Les Cahiers d’études africaines (CNRS, Ehess), she was co-curator of the Yango II Biennale, Kinshasa / RDC – a process that took place in Kinshasa from february 2020 to august 2022.

Nadia Yala Kisukidi is specialized in french and africana philosophy. She has published Bergson ou l’humanité créatrice (Paris, CNRS, 2013), directed collective essays ( Afrocentricités (Kisukidi, Guedj dir.) for the revue Tumultes in 2019 ; Kinshasa Star Line (Kisukidi dir.) for the revue Multitudes in 2020) and written many articles in french and africana philosophy. She has written a book with the feminist and Brazilian philosopher Djamila Ribeiro, Dialogue transatlantique (Paris, Anacaona, 2021), and her first novel, La Dissociation (Paris, Le seuil, 2022).

Under the supervision of Pierre Singaravelou, she coordinated with the historians Melanie Lamotte, Arthur Asseraf and Guillaume Blanc, the book : Colonisations. Notre histoire, Paris, Seuil, 2023. She also published “Walking barefoot”, in Dele Adeyemo, Natalie Diaz, Rinaldo Walcott, Nadia Yala Kisukidi and Christina Sharpe, Borders, human itineraries, and all our relation, Toronto, Knopf edition Canada, 2023.

Djamila Ribeiro holds a degree in Philosophy and a master’s degree in Political Philosophy from the Federal University of São Paulo. She is the coordinator of Feminismos Plurais, which includes the Feminismos Plurais Space, the Feminismos Plurais online platform, and the Sueli Carneiro editorial label, which publishes the Feminismos Plurais book collection.

She is the author of the books Lugar de Fala (Jandaíra/Feminismos Plurais), Quem tem medo do Feminismo Negro?, Pequeno Manual Antirracista, and Cartas para minha avó (Companhia das Letras), as well as Diálogos Transatlânticos (Editions Anacaona), which have been translated into several languages. She is also a guest professor at New York University (NYU) and the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP).

Since 2022, she has been a member of the Paulista Academy of Letters, occupying chair No. 28, and serves as a board member for the Padre Anchieta Foundation, the Pinacoteca of São Paulo, and the University of São Paulo’s Fund for students racial and gender equity. She is a columnist for the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo and served as the Deputy Secretary for Human Rights of São Paulo in 2016. She was awarded the Prince Claus Award in 2019 by the Kingdom of the Netherlands and was recognized by the BBC as one of the 100 most influential women in the world.

In 2020, she won the Jabuti Prize, the most prestigious literary award in Brazil, in the Humanities category for Pequeno Manual Antirracista. In 2021, she became the first Brazilian in history to be honored by the BET Awards, granted by the African American community in the United States. In 2023, she received the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights.