Call for Participation: Friday, 16 October 2026, University of Basel

Sara Ahmed opens her seminal study Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Postcoloniality

by considering how the extraterrestrial alien evokes not only fascination in our

cultural imaginary, but also existential questions about what it means to be human. "[T]he

detection of alien forms becomes a mechanism for the reassertion of a most human 'we'," she

writes (2), and, as a result, the alien becomes the means by which the borders of the human

are negotiated. Through this analogy, Ahmed considers how the figure of the stranger, like

the alien, is ever-present in our imagination and governs who is denned as 'us' in contrast (2).

Ahmed's study, from which the present event borrows its name, highlights the productive

fluidity of the strange. The concept connects postcolonial and migration studies to the study

of speculative fiction and fantasy, humanist and posthumanist theories, and even questions

of aesthetic form: As Viktor Shklovsky posits in Theory of Prose, it is the function of art to

"'estrang[e]' objects and complicat[e] form," thereby allowing the observer to appreciate or

even "experienc[e]" the "process of creativity" (6).

To interrogate these multiple perspectives, we invite Ph□ students to the fourth meeting of

the Swiss Literary Ph□ Network [DocNetCH], "Strange Encounters." DocNetCH is a selforganised

research and networking group of doctoral students in Literary Studies across

Switzerland that aims to provide a place for early career researchers to exchange ideas,

develop a broader support system, and meet peers with similar projects and interests outside

of their own universities. This semester's meeting will take place at the University of Basel

on 16 October 2026. We are pleased to host a collaborative keynote lecture by Aylin Walder

(Braunschweig) and Daniel Ortiz (Basel), followed by a discussion round on 'strangeness'

and its applicability in our work. Participants will be able to continue discussions in the

customary extended coffee break and will have the chance to participate in the biannual

DocNetCH Townhall.

Registration by 10 September 2026: tamaradima.imboden@unibas.ch