Intensive readings of the assigned texts.

Week 1: Liberalism and Imperialism I
Mandatory readings:

• James Tully (2008) Public Philosophy in a New Key, Volume II; Imperialism and Civic Freedom, chapters 1 and 5.
• Walter Mignolo (2011) ‘The darker side of the Enlightenment; a decolonial reading of Kant’s Geography’, in Reading Kant’s Geography, eds Stuart Elden and Eduardo Mendieta, NewYork: SUNY Press, p. 319-344.
• 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.

Facultative:

• Losurdo, Domenico (2015) Liberalism, A counter-history. London and New York: Verso. Chapters 1-2, p. 1-66.

Week 2: Liberalism and Imperialism II; Decolonial approaches
Mandatory readings:

• Charles Mills (2015) ‘Decolonizing Western Political Philosophy’, New Political Science, 37:1, 1-24
• Seloua Luste Boulbina, (2018) ‘Decolonization.’ Political Concepts: a Critical Lexicon, politicalconcepts.org/decolonization-seloua-luste-boulbina/
• Nelson Maldonado-Torres (2015) ‘Outline of Ten Theses on Coloniality and Decoloniality’, available at http://frantzfanonfoundation-fondationfrantzfanon.com/article2360.html
• Ariella Aïsha Azoulay (2019) ‘Unlearing Imperialism’ (chapter one), in Potential history, unlearning Imperialism, New York: Penguin Random House.

Facultative:

• Ypi, Lea (2013) ‘What’s Wrong with Colonialism’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 41: 158–191.
• Dhawan, Nikita (2014) ‘Affirmative Sabotage of the Master’s Tools: The Paradox of Postcolonial Enlightenment’ in Decolonizing Enlightenment: transnational justice, human rights and democracy in a postcolonial world, Nikita Dhawan, Leverkusen: Barbara Budrich Publishers, 19-79.

Week 3: Shifting the Geography of Reason; Freedom, Justice, and Decolonization
Mandatory Reading:

• Gordon, Lewis (2021) Freedom, Justice and Decolonization. London: Routledge, chapter 1 and epilogue.
• Gordon, Jane Anna (2014) Creolizing political theory; reading Rousseau through Fanon (2014), Introduction, chapters 2 and 5.

Week 4: Race
Mandatory readings:

• Fanon, Frantz (1984) Black Skin White Masks, Chapters 5 and 8.
• Tommie Shelby (2012) ‘Race’ in Oxford Handbook of Social and Political Philosophy.
• Ahmed, Sara (2007). ‘A Phenomenology of Whiteness.’ Feminist Theory, vol. 8, no. 2.
• 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

Facultative readings:

• Alana Lentin (2017) ‘Race’ in W. Outhwaite and S. Turner (eds.), Sage Handbook of Political Sociology
• Jackson, Zakiyya Iman (2020) Becoming Human; Meaning and Matter in an anti-black World.
• Buck-Morss, Susan. (2000) ‘Hegel and Haiti’. Critical Inquiry, vol. 26, no. 4, 2000, pp. 821–865.

Week 5: Imperialism, Capital and Property
Mandatory Readings:

• Bhambra, Gurminder K. (2021) ‘Colonial global economy: towards a theoretical reorientation of political economy’, Review of International Political Economy, 28:2, 307-322
• Quijano, Anibal (2000): ‘Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism and Latin America’, in Neplanta, Views from the South. 1.3, 533-580.
• Shacherreiter, Judith (2012) ‘Propertization as a Civilizing and Modernizing Mission: Land and Human Rights in the Colonial and Postcolonial World’ in Decolonizing Enlightenment : transnational justice, human rights and democracy in a postcolonial world, ed. Nikita

Dhawan, Leverkusen: Barbara Budrich publishers, pp. 227-240.

• John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, selection

Week 6: Black rights, white wrongs
Mandatory Readings:

• Mills, Charles (2017) Black Rights / White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, chapters 2,4,6,7.

Week 7: 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.

Week 8: Agency, Alternatives, Repair
Mandatory Readings:

• Lorde, Aurde (1979) ‘The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House’ https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/lordedismantle.html).
• Charles Mills (2017) Black Rights / White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism,

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Gordon, Lewis (2021) Freedom, Justice and Decolonization, chapter 3. London: Routledge
• Ariella Aïsha Azoulay (2019) ‘Repair, Reparations, Return: The Condition of Worldliness’ in Potential History, chapter 7. New York: Penguin Random House.

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. Most of the readings will be made available through a canvas page.

Examination
You can choose between different options for the final exam:
1. Write a final paper of around 3000 words.
2. You prepare and record a publishable podcast with 2 students.
3. You write a publishable book review in Dutch or English.
4. You take an oral exam in a group of two students. During the last week of class students will individually submit a one-page written preparation for this oral exam with critical points for discussion. The oral exams will take place early June.

Last updated May 17, 2022.