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Colonialidad/Latinidad | Shifting the Geo-graphy & Bio-graphy of Knowledges
During 2007 - 2008 scholarly year, the Center For Global Studies & the Humanities is engaged in two parallel projects
1) Colonialidad & Latinidad Discussion Series
2) The continuation of Shifting the Geo-graphy & Bio-graphy of Knowledge
I) COLONIALIDAD/LATINIDAD DISCUSSION SERIES
A joint initiative of the Working Group on "Globalization, Modernity/Coloniality and the Geopolitics of Knowledge" (a working group of The Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies). This special edition will run through the scholarly year 2007 - 2008.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
speaker Nelson Maldonado-Torres
6:00 pm to 8:30 pm
The John Hope Franklin Center, room 240
Dr. Maldonado-Torres will present "Coloniality and Latiniwhat?: Decolonization in Multiple Voices" This is a short introduction to four different projects (local, national, and international) in which questions of identity, liberation, and decolonization are central: 1) Rethinking U.S. Ethnic Studies in its Fortieth Birthday, 2) the Latino/a Academy of Arts and Sciences, 3) Reparation, Affirmative Action, and the Decolonization of Knowledge in Brazil, and 4) the Caribbean Philosophical Association.
Readings and supplemental materials:
Chronology of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley
In Search of a Collective Voice: The Latina/o Academy
Latina/o Academy of Arts and Sciences: A Proposal
Del mito de la democracia racial a la descolonizacion del poder, del ser, y del conocer
Atitude Quilombola
I MARCHA DE REPAROACAO E COMBATE AO RACISMO DO SUBURBIO FERROVIARIO DO SUBURBIO
Mission Statement of the Caribbean Philosophical Association and call for papers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9vqBPMvBrI
Dr. Maldonado-Torres earned his B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Puerto Rico in 1994, and his Ph.D. (2002) in Religious Studies from Brown University. He specializes in phenomenology, critical theory, postcolonial studies, and modern religious thought. He is interested in theories of decolonization as they emerge in different contexts and from different subjective positions in the Americas. Dr. Maldonado has done a considerable amount of work on Africana, Jewish, and Latin American intellectual productions. He is currently working on a theory of epistemic and material decolonization based on Fanon's work and on the theoretical production of U.S. feminists of color. This work encompasses reflections on religion, philosophical anthropology, social and cultural formations in the Americas, and the role of critical intellectual activity in the context of global coloniality. Dr. Maldonado's publications include, among others, "La antropología filosófica de Emmanuel Lévinas" [Emmanuel Levinas's Philosophical Anthropology], Intersticios (Mexico) 5.10 (1999); "The Cry of the Self as a Call from the Other: The Paradoxical Loving Subjectivity of Frantz Fanon," Listening: Journal of Religion and Culture (Winter 2001); and "Postimperial Reflections on Crisis, Knowledge, and Utopia: Transgresstopic Critical Hermeneutics and the 'Death of European Man.'" Review 25.3 (2002).
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
speaker Maria Lugones
6:00 pm to 8:30 pm
The John Hope Franklin Center, room 240
Dr. María Lugones is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Philosophy, Interpretation and Culture at the University of New York, at Binghamton, where she is conducting an ongoing seminar on "Decolonial thinking" ( http://cpic.binghamton.edu/decolonial.html ). Dr. Lugones' fields of interests, research and teaching include ethics, social and political philosophy, feminist theory, philosophy of race and gender, Latin American philosophy, popular education and U.S. Latino Politics. Among her recent publications are, "Problems of translation in Postcolonial Thinking." Anthropology News April 2003, with Joshua Price; "The Inseparability of race, class, and gender." Latino Studies Journal . Vol. I #1, Fall 2003, with Joshua Price;
"Impure Communities" in Diversity and Community: An Interdisciplinary Reader , edited by Philip Anderson; Blackwell, 2002; Peregrinajes/Pilgrimages: Theorizing Coalition Against Multiple Oppressions. New York : Rowman & Littlefield Press, 2003.
Dr. Lugones' presentation will be based on her recent published article, "Heterosexualism and the Colonial / Modern Gender System" Hypatia - Volume 22, Number 1, Winter 2007, pp. 186-209; http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/hypatia/v022/22.1lugones.html
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
speaker Jose Saldívar
6:00 pm to 8:30 pm
The John Hope Franklin Center, room 240
“Coloniality and Latinidad: A Conversation with José Saldívar.”
Professor José David Saldívar is joining Duke University as Director of the Center for Latino/as Studies. Professor Saldívar is coming from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was the Class of 1942 Professor of Ethnic Studies and English. He is a leading figure in Chicano and Latina Studies and author of classic books such as The Dialectics of Our America: Genealogy, Cultural Critique, and Literary History (Duke 1991) and Border Matters: Remapping American Cultural Studies (California 1997). Professor Saldívar joined the project known as modernity/coloniality/decoloniality (for shorter, “the decolonial project”) in early 2000. He has contributed enormously through two workshops he co-organized at Berkeley (with professors Ramón Grosfógel and Nelson Maldonado-Torres) and co-editor of two volumes with the outcome of the workshops--Latin@s in the World System. Decolonization Struggles in the 21 st Century US Empire, was published 2005 (Paradigm Press) and Unsettling Post-Colonial Studies: Coloniality, Border Thinking and Transmodernity is forthcoming (Duke University Press).
Readings:
Unsettling Race, Coloniality, and Caste by José David Saldívar
Disclaimer, or I Don't Want Her, You Can Have Her, She's Too Hocicona For Me From Sandra Cisnero: Caramelo
Postface: After "America" From Walter D. Mignolo: The Idea of Latin America
Down Under: New World Literatures and Ecocriticism by George B. Handley
Americanity As a Concept, or the Americas in the Modern World-System by Anibal Quijano & Immanuel Wallerstein
Professor Saldívar presentation will be based on forthcoming book. Reading material will be distributed in advance. Please contact tracy.carhart@duke.edu to receive your own copy
II) SHIFTING THE GEO-GRAPHY AND BIO-GRAPHY OF KNOWLEDGE
An ongoing series organized around workshops exploring a crucial issue of de-colonial thinking and de-colonial humanities.
"Shifting the Geo-graphy and Bio-graphy of Knowledge" is a three-year project sponsored by the Center for Global Studies and the Humanities. The title of the project comes from two different sources. One is the concept of "Geo-politics of Knowledge" introduced as a key concept of Philosophy of Liberation in Latin America in the mid 70s, and the other, "Shifting the Geography of Reason," was introduced as a key founding concept of the Caribbean Philosophical Association in 2002. This project, emerging from the Humanities, is not limited to this domain but attempts to engage in conversations with other areas of academic knowledge as well as with knowledge production in social movements and institutions (e.g., human rights), in the U.S. as well as across the globe.
REFLECTIONS ON THE DE-COLONIAL OPTION AND THE HUMANITIES: AN INTERNATIONAL DIALOGUE
February 21-22, 2008.
Room 240, Franklin Center
[program]
[program cover]
[workshop statement]
Symposium reading material:
The Legacy of Slavery: White Humanities and Its Subject
How can the decolonial project become the ground for the decolonial humanities ? A few reflections from the "vanished" second world
Colonial Archives, Postcolonial Archeology
Rousseau and Fanon on Inequality and the Human Sciences
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Noon - 5:00 pm
Panelists:
Gregson Davis, Dean of the Humanities (Duke University)
Sabine Broeck, Institute for Transcultural & Postcolonial Studies (INPUTS, University of Bremen, Germany)
Guo-Juin Hong, Asian & African Languages & Literatures and Film & Video Program (Duke University)
Commentators and discussion leaders:
Esther Gabara, Romance Studies & Art History (Duke University)
Jessica Eaglin, Literature Program & Law School (Duke University)
Arnold Ho, Divinity School (Duke University)
Friday, February 22, 2008
9:30 am - 5:30 pm
Panelists:
Kwame Nimako, Dept. of Sociology (the National Institute for the Study for Dutch Slavery and its Legacy (NiNsee)
Madina Tlostanova, Comparative Politique & Comparative Philosopy (People's Friendship University of Russia)
Claudia Milian, Department of Romance Studies & African & African American Studies (Duke University)
Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Department of Ethnic Studies (The University of California at Berkeley)
Commentators and discussion leaders:
Joseph Tucker Edmonds, Religion/Graduate Program (Duke University)
Carmen Llenin-Figueroa, Literature/Graduate Program (Duke University)
Jose Venegas, Romance Languages & Literatures (UNC - Chapel Hill)
"Coloniality and Gender"
Thursday, November 15, 2007
speakers Maria Lugones and Madina Tlostanova
noon to 2:30 pm
The John Hope Franklin Center, room 240
This workshop will explore the complicity between the concept of "woman" and the "logic of coloniality."
The idea that the concept of "woman" is a Western invention and, consequently, it is embedded in the logic of coloniality and imperial expansion, have been recently advanced and explored. While it could be documented that "patriarchy" is not singular to the West, it could be argued also that "woman" is a concept used in Western rhetoric of modernization and salvation, to re-organize human relations and to transform subjectivities around the globe. "Coloniality" (which is not the same than "colonialism"), is a hidden logic that allows imperial transformations and colonial management in the name of progress, civilization, development and democracy.
Dr. María Lugones is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Philosophy, Interpretation and Culture at the University of New York, at Binghamton, where she is conducting an ongoing seminar on "Decolonial thinking" ( http://cpic.binghamton.edu/decolonial.html ). Dr. Lugones' fields of interests, research and teaching include ethics, social and political philosophy, feminist theory, philosophy of race and gender, Latin American philosophy, popular education and U.S. Latino Politics. Among her recent publications are, "Problems of translation in Postcolonial Thinking." Anthropology News April 2003, with Joshua Price; "The Inseparability of race, class, and gender." Latino Studies Journal . Vol. I #1, Fall 2003, with Joshua Price;
"Impure Communities" in Diversity and Community: An Interdisciplinary Reader , edited by Philip Anderson; Blackwell, 2002; Peregrinajes/Pilgrimages: Theorizing Coalition Against Multiple Oppressions. New York : Rowman & Littlefield Press, 2003.
Dr. Lugones' presentation will be based on her recent published article, "Heterosexualism and the Colonial / Modern Gender System" Hypatia - Volume 22, Number 1, Winter 2007, pp. 186-209; http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/hypatia/v022/22.1lugones.html
Dr. Madina Tlostanova is Visiting Scholar at the John Hope Franklin Center for International and Interdisciplinary Studies and Professor at the Department of Comparative Politics at the People's Friendship University of Russia, in Moscow . Dr. Tlostanova's fields of interests, research and teaching, include trans-cultural subjectivities and aesthetics, as expressed in literature, cinema, arts, the culture of the quotidian; racism in the global context and particularly in the post-socialist world and the Russian ex-colonies - Central Asia and Caucasus; gender issues in non-eastern contexts; feminist theory and Eurocentrism. Among her recent publications are "The Imperial Chronotope: Istanbul-Baku-Khurramabad", in Cultural Studies 21/3, 2007; "The Imagined Freedom: Post-Soviet Intellectuals between the Hegemony of the State and the Hegemony of the Market", South Atlantic Quarterly , 105/3, 2006; "Life in Samarkand: Caucasus and Central Asia vis-á-vis the West and Islam",Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Knowledge , V/1, 2006; "Theorizing from the Borders, Shifting to Geo- and Body Politics of Knowledge", European Journal of Social Theory , 9/2, 2005, with Walter Mignolo. Dr. Tlostanova is currently working on a book-length manuscript on gender, race and religion in Central Asia and the Caucasus .
Dr. Tlostanova's talk will be based on a recent article "'Why Cut the Feet in Order to Fit the Western Shoes?': Non-European Soviet Ex-colonies and the Modern Colonial Gender System" (manuscript, used with permission) which is a chapter of her book in progress .
The fourth workshop in the series, Diasporas, Transcultural Dialogues, Genealogies of Thoughts, took place April 27, 2007 at Duke University with the participation of Roberto Dainotto ( Duke University) presenting "The Forgetfulness of Historiography and the Europeanization of Europe: Michele Amari's_Muslims of Sicily_",Shu-mei Shih (University of California, Los Angeles) "Against Diaspora: The Sinophone as Places of Cultural Production" and Ebrahim Moosa (Duke University) "Dialogical Encounters in Social Imaginaries: Ghazali and Malik Bennabi".
Commentaries were delivered by Eunice Sahle (UNC,Odum Institute for Research in the Social Sciences) and Elena Yehia (Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Cultural Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) along with general discussion.
This project is led by a steering committee composed of the following Duke faculty:
Leo CHING (Asian and African Languages and Literatures)
Roberto DAINOTTO (Romance Studies, Italian)
Louis MEINTJES (Music)
Walter MIGNOLO (Literature, Center for Global Studies and the Humanities)
III) DIALOGICAL ETHICS AND CRITICAL COSMOPOLITANISM
Cosmopolitan Thinking/Dialogical Ethics will be devoted to thinking in and from the cracks and the conflicts between the triumphal claims than the world is flat and the consequences of imperial actions taken to flattening the world; to explore the possibilities of thinking otherwise in the areas of political economy, political theory, epistemology, ethics, subjectivity, etc; and to explore the relations between technological innovations and the reproduction of exploitation and marginalization.
Romand Coles and Walter Mignolo initiated this three-year project as an outcome of the seminar, “Race, Religion, and Globalization." The project involves a core group of Duke and UNC faculty and graduate students interested in exploring the links between knowledge, morality, and social transformation. Walter Mignolo (Duke) and Mark Driscoll (UNC) are the current co-convenors of this seminar. A list of participants and past issues explored can be found at: http://www.duke.edu/~wmignolo/people/people.html.
The first year was devoted to discussion based on the current research of its own members plus three guest scholars: Irish Young, a political scientist from the University of Chicago; Paula Moya, a professor of English and Latino/as Studies at Stanford University; and Tariq Ali, an intellectual and activist who writes for the New Left Review in London.
The year 2002-2003 was devoted to "Human Rights, Ethics, and Critical Cosmopolitanism." Visitors included: Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Coimbra, Portugal; Catherine Walsh, a professor and activist from the Universidad Andina, Quito, Ecuador; and Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, a Nigerian philosopher who teaches at De Paul University in Chicago.
At the end of the third year (2004), the group will launch a full-scale conference on the moral, political, and intellectual concerns they have raised in the workshop.
IV) LOCATING KNOWLEDGES AND DECOLONIZING EXPERTISE
This project, directed by Nelson Maldonado-Torres, seeks to explore and enact knowledge and understanding at different levels of society and not only in the academy; at the same time it seeks to transform academic knowledge in ways that can benefit and expand (and not colonize) knowledge and understanding outside the academy or centers of technological and scientific investigation. This project is sponsored by the Franklin Humanities Institute, the CGSH, the Center for the Study of Muslim Networks, and the Center for Reflection on Science and Technology.
last updated June 2006