6 July 2023
Recalling Earth: Decoloniality and Demodernity
Recalling Earth and learning worlds and worlds-making will be the topic of chapter 14th of the María Lugones Summer School that will take place at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.
Grounded on the basic concept of decolonial thinking: that there is no modernity without coloniality, the summer school will be an exploration on a demodern and decolonial Recalling Earth and learning and making worlds. Decoloniality complemented with demodernity are two necessary options departing from eurocentrism.
Modernity and coloniality divided and separated the human from its communal and earthly groundings. But they did it in distinct and complementary form. In Europe, the separation was initiated with the inventions of the concepts of “nature” and “culture.” Both are Western concepts in their content and in the binary logic in which has been settled. In the colonies, “nature” was transformed into “natural resources.”
Decoloniality and demodernity has two complementary tasks: delinking from Western modernity/coloniality in order to reconstitute what has been destituted. What has been destituted is the primordial attitude towards the preservation and regeneration of life in harmony on and with Earth. It has been replaced instead by the exploitations and extraction of “resources,” human and natural resources. The promises of modernity became the colonial horizon for the commodification and instrumentalization of death masking the vital earthly energies that nourished enchantment of life.For that reason, recalling Earth and learning and making worlds have to start with demodernizing and decolonizing .
The 14th edition of the Summer School will be devoted to generate communal conversations in search of demodern and decolonial horizons of learning worlds and worlds-making.
As in previous years, we at the school pursue our goals in un-disciplinary paths. Our 'faculty' have been trained in different disciplines (dance, visual arts, sociology, semiotics, philosophy, history, curatorial training); they were educated in Europe and/or in the former colonies, they belong to diverse local histories (including of course the local history of Europe).
As in previous year, we do not teach, the participants learn. Through a mixture of lectures, organized conversations, workshops and informal conversation, the learning experience sketches forms of communal learning: each of us, faculty and participants, know something that the other do not know. The school attempts to work on the communal knowledge participants brings every year. The 2023 version invites us to learn together towards recalling Earth and learning worlds.
Course leader
Prof. Walter Mignolo & Dr. Rolando Vázquez
Target group
Designed for graduate students (Ph.D. and M.A.) from all disciplinary backgrounds. The course is also open to interested advanced undegraduate students.
Course aim
The course will make the students acquainted with the most current debates around decolonial critical thought, in particular in relation to the communal.
Fee info
EUR 1100: Course + course materials
