The Dutch Research School of Philosophy (OZSW) and University of Amsterdam invite ReMa students and PhD candidates in philosophy to register for the course Philosophy and Decolonization to take place in Spring 2024.
Organizing university
Date(s)
Location
E2.01 in OMHP (Oudemanhuispoort) at the University of Amsterdam
Type of activity
Primary target group
Application/registration deadline
The deadline for registration is January 26, 2024.
About the topic
Over the last decades, it has been increasingly recognized that philosophy as an academic discipline should engage more with decolonial perspectives, and it has also been argued that philosophy as a discipline should be decolonized. This course broadly addresses the intersections of philosophy and decolonization. We read and compare various decolonial approaches in philosophy ranging from works that concentrate on understanding and critiquing colonialism, understanding its relation to liberalism and decolonization in political philosophy; works about the decolonization of philosophy as a discipline, and of the university. We also read works on methodologies for decolonization and methodologies for ‘unlearning imperialism’ and coloniality. These first readings prepare further readings on the intrinsic relations between capitalism, coloniality, and property, as well as works that analyse interconnections between capitalism, colonialism, and ecology/land/Earth. Lastly, we address resistance to colonialism, the role of affect in such resistance, and struggles for repair, reparations and returns as one of the ways to give a shape to such resistance.
Aim / objective
- Reading and understanding a range of decolonial approaches in and to philosophy
- Insight into critiques of the liberal and human rights traditions from a decolonial perspective
- Enhancing the students’ capacity to formulate philosophical and interdisciplinary perspectives that are selfreflexive about the legacies of eurocentrism and imperialism in disciplinary philosophy.
Program
We will read chapters and articles tracing, analysing, and critically engaging the intricacies of colonialism, liberalism, and capitalism, both from an intellectual historical perspective, and from a systematic political theoretical perspective. During the first class we will discuss how to deal with the literature and the possibility of working on case studies. Apart from this part of the programme, we will organise a one day workshop, for which we determine the date during the first class of this course, where we will read and discuss Edward Said’s The Question of Palestine, organise a film screening and then a roundtable. Details will follow during the first class.
Session 1, 14 February. Colonialism, Coloniality
Aimé Césaire (2000 [1955]) Discourse on Colonialism. New York: NYU Press, Monthly Review. Introduction by Robin Kelly. (For a good introduction see as well: Grâce Ndjako, voorwoord bij de Nederlandse vertaling, uitgeverij de Geus).
Seloua Luste Boulbina, ‘Decolonization.’ Political Concepts: a Critical Lexicon, www.politicalconcepts.org/decolonization-seloua-luste-boulbina/
Glen Coulthard (2014) Red Skin White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, introduction and chapter 1, p. 1-50
Facultative:
Kant, Immanuel. ‘Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim.’ Allen W. Wood (vert.). In: Anthropology, History, and Education (2007), Robert B. Louden & Günter Ziller (eds), Cambridge University Press.
Session 2, 28 February: Liberal political philosophy, normativity, unlearning coloniality
Mandatory readings:
Charles Mills (2015) ‘Decolonizing Western Political Philosophy’, New Political Science, 37:1, 1-24
Lewis Gordon (2021) ‘Toward the Decolonization of Normative Life’ in Freedom, Justice and Decolonization, London: Routledge, chapter 3.
Ariella Aïsha Azoulay (2019) ‘Unlearing Imperialism’ (chapter one), in Potential history, unlearning Imperialism, New York: Penguin Random House, p. 1-57.
Facultative:
Losurdo, Domenico (2015) Liberalism, A counter-history. London and New York: Verso. Chapters 1-2, p. 1-66.
Mills, Charles (2017) Black Rights / White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, chapter 2 and 3.
James Tully (2008) Public Philosophy in a New Key, Volume II; Imperialism and Civic Freedom, chapters 1 and 5.
Session 3, 13 March: Decolonization of philosophy as a discipline, in the university
Mandatory readings:
Achille Mbembe (2015) Decolonising the university and the question of the archive.
Andrea Baldwin (2022) A decolonial black feminist theory of Reading and Shade, Introduction. London and New York: Routlegde, p. 1-30
Gurminder Bhambra, Dalia Gebrail and Keren Nisancioglu (eds), Decolonising the University. London: Pluto Press, chapter 5, ‘Decolonizing Philosophy’ (Nelson Maldonado Torres, Rafael Vizcaíno, Jasmine Wallace and Jeong Eun Annabel We
Nelson Maldonado-Torres (2015) ‘Outline of Ten Theses on Coloniality and Decoloniality’, available at http://frantzfanonfoundation-fondationfrantzfanon.com/article2360.html, NB: theses 1-5
Session 4, 27 March: Race
Mandatory readings:
Fanon, Frantz (1984) Black Skin White Masks, Chapters 5 and 8. (If you never read before or want to reread)
Ahmed, Sara (2007). ‘A Phenomenology of Whiteness.’ Feminist Theory, vol. 8, no. 2.
Sylvia Wynter (1990) “Afterword: Beyond Miranda’s Meanings: Un/Silencing the Demonic Ground of Caliban’s ‘Woman’” in Out of the Kumbla; Caribbean Woman and Literature. C.B. Davies and Elaine Savory Fido (eds). Trenton: Africa World Press.
Facultative readings:
Alana Lentin (2017) ‘Race’ in W. Outhwaite and S. Turner (eds.), Sage Handbook of Political Sociology
Sylvia Wynter (2003) ‘Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation–An Argument’. CR: The New Centennial Review, Volume 3, Number 3
Session 5, 10 April: Imperialism, Capitalism and Ecological Destruction
Mandatory Readings:
Malcom Ferdinand (2022 [2019]) Decolonial Ecology. Thinking from the Caribbean World. Cambridge: Polity Press, Prologue and Part I, p. 1-74.
Davis Janae, Moulton Alex, Van Sant Levi, Williams Brian, ‘Anthropocene, Capitalocene, …Plantationocene?: A Manifesto for Ecological Justice in an Age of Global Crises’. Geography Compass. 2019; e12438. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12438.
Bradley Bryan, (2000) ‘Property as Ontology: On Aboriginal and English Understandings of Ownership’, in Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, 13 (1), 3–31.
Bhambra, Gurminder K. (2021) ‘Colonial global economy: towards a theoretical reorientation of political economy’, Review of International Political Economy, 28 (2), 307-322
Facultative:
John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, selection
Cheryl Harris, (1993) ‘Whiteness as Property’ in Harvard Law Review vol. 106, no. 8, pp. 1707–91.
Ashley Bohrer (2020) ‘Toward a Decolonial Feminist Anticapitalism: María Lugones, Sylvia Wynter, and Sayak Valencia, in Hypatia, 35, 524-541.
Session 6, 24 April: Human Rights
Mandatory Readings:
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (2005) ‘Use and abuse of human rights’, The South Atlantic Quarterly, Volume 103, Number 2/3, Spring/Summer. 2004, pp. 523-581, revised version in Boundary 2 (Based on: Amnesty International Lectures 2001, Human Rights and the Humanities).
Ariella Aïsha Azoulay (2019) ‘Human Rights’ in Potential History, chapter 6. New York: Penguin Random House.
Moyn, Samuel, (2018) https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/human-rights-are-notenough/. (Listen also to the podcast on the website of Not enough, Human Rights in an unequal World: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674737563.
Session 7, 8 May: Agency, Alternatives, Affects
Mandatory Readings:
Lorde, Audre (1979) Two Essays in Sister Outsider. Essays & Speeches. New York: Ten Speed Press.
Glen Coulthard (2014) Red Skin White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, chapter 4.
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, As we have always done; Indigenous Freedom through radical resistance, selection.
Édouard Glissant, ‘Opacity and Transparency’ and ‘For Opacity’, in Poetics of Relation.
Session 8, 22 May: Agency, Self-Affirmation, Repair, Reparations
Glen Coulthard (2014) Red Skin White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, chapter 5.
Charles Mills (2017) Black Rights / White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism, epilogue. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ariella Aïsha Azoulay (2019) ‘Repair, Reparations, Return: The Condition of Worldliness’ in Potential History, chapter 7. New York: Penguin Random House.
Malcom Ferdinand (2022 [2019]) Decolonial Ecology. Thinking from the Caribbean World. Cambridge: Polity Press, Part IV.
Facultative:
Panashe Chigumadzi (2021) Can white South Africa live up to Ubuntu, the African philosophy Tutu globalised? | Panashe Chigumadzi | The Guardian
https://theconversation.com/when-france-extorted-haiti-the-greatest-heist-in-history-137949?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20211001&utm_term=5819359&utm_campaign=money&utm_id=46765242&orgid=305&utm_att1=money
Required preparations
Readings
The reading list is quite long. Not everyone will always have to read everything, we just want to present you with a broad spectrum of relevant literature. We will discuss how to proceed during the first class and assign the preparation of specific weeks to students interested to do so. Most of the readings will be made available through dropbox.
Examination
You can choose between different options for the examination:
1.Write a final paper of 3000-4000 words.
2. You prepare and record a publishable podcast. This needs to be accompanied by written document containing a bibliography and brief introduction to the themes discussed. Further requirements will be detailed in class.
3. You write a publishable book review of two relevant recent books (3000 words).
4. You take an oral exam in a group of two or three students. During the last week of class students will individually submit a three-page written preparation with questions for this oral exam. The oral exams will take place early June.
Last updated December 5, 2023.
Certificate / credit points
For this course participants can earn a certificate after successful completion. Please note, however, that the OZSW is not accredited to reward students with credits/ECTS directly. The study load is mentioned on the certificate, which can usually be exchanged for ‘real’ credits (ECTS) at your home university. The study load for this activity is: 6 ECTS. If students can earn different number of ECTS. For example, students can also take this course as a 3 ECTS tutorial (requirements to be detailed in class).
Costs
Attendance is free for
- ReMa students who are members of the OZSW or another Research School in Humanities.
- PhD candidates who are members of the OZSW or another Research School in Humanities.
Attendance is 300 euros for all others.
How to apply / register
Please click here to register for the course.
Important: Master students can register for the course as well, but PhD candidates and Research Master students are the primary target group. If you are interested in participating, please send an email to assistant.director@ozsw.nl to be put on a waiting list. You will be notified after January 9th, 2023, if there are places available and if you can register and join the course.
If registration has been closed because the maximum amount of participants has been reached, you can submit your name to the waiting list by sending an email to assistant.director@ozsw.nl. Please also indicate whether you are a ReMa student or PhD candidate and whether you are a member of the OZSW or not.
Registration/application form
If registration has been closed because the maximum amount of participants has been reached, you can submit your name to the waiting list by sending an email to secretariaat@ozsw.nl. Please also indicate whether you are a ReMa student or PhD candidate and whether you are a member of the OZSW or not.
Cancellation and registration policy
Organizers
Prof. dr. Yolande Jansen y.jansen@uva.nl