Professor: Diana Taylor
Class: Monday, 3:30-6:15
Office hours, Tuesday, 3:00-5:30 and by appointment
T.A. Lee Xie
“There can be no discourse of decolonization, no theory of decolonization, without a decolonizing practice.” Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui
“The opposite of life is not death, the opposite of life is disenchantment.”
Luiz Antonio Simas and Luiz Rufino, Encantamento sobre política de vida
Emerging predominantly from Latin America, ‘decolonial’ studies call attention to the fact that coloniality is not only not over, not post, but that it permeates almost all aspects of our lives: subjectivity, race, gender, language, as well as our epistemologies and pedagogies. This course will examine some of the basic elements of coloniality and the theories and practices that scholars and artists have developed to contest ongoing practices of “epistemicide.” Readings start with Columbus’ First letter (1493) and the Requerimiento (1513) and fast forward to works by Quijano, Sousa Santos, Dussel, Mignolo, Rivera Cusicanqui, Juan López Inztin, Wynter and others. While the course focuses on decolonial struggles coming out of the Americas, students will be invited to question the geographies of thought that place Caribbean theorists (Fanon, Césaire, Hall etc) in debates about colonialism that all but exclude the Americas. This syllabus is a work in progress, to be fully developed in class by all of us. Groups will be asked to propose suggestions of texts, practices, and performance that engage their projects as the course proceeds.
Week 1, 2/1
Theories: Coming into Presence
Columbus’ First Letter, 1493
Requerimiento
Diana Taylor, “Scenarios of Discovery” (Ch. 2 of The Archive and the Repertoire)
Race, Gender, Sexuality, Ethnicity: Casta Paintings
Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Coco Fusco, The Couple in the Cage (video)
Week 2, 2/8
Practices
Augusto Boal, Selections from Theatre of the Oppressed, “Foreword” and Ch 4, Poetics of the Oppressed.
Boal workshop with George Emilio Sanchez
Week 3, 2/15- President’s Day, No classes, University Holiday
Thursday, 2/18- Legislative Day, Classes meeting according to Monday schedule (make up for Week 3)
Pedagogies/ Practices
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Aimé Cesaire, from «Discourse on Colonialism » in Colonial Discourse and Post Colonial Theory: A Reader, ed. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (Columbia UP) (online)
Katherine McKittrick, “Demonic Grounds: Sylvia Wynter” (Ch. 5 of Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle). Notes.
Week 4, 2/22
Theories
Aníbal Quijano, “Coloniality of Power: Eurocentrism, and Latin America
(in Coloniality at Large, p. 181 ff)
Silvia Rivera Cuisicanqui, “The Potosí Principle: Another View of Totality”
Week 5, 3/1
Sylvia Wynter, “1492: A New World View,” from Race, Discourse, and the Origin of the Americas: A New World View, edited by Vera Lawrence Hyatt and Rex Nettleford
Katherine McKittrick, “Introduction: Geographic Stories,” “Conclusion: Stay Human,” from Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle
Week 6, 3/8
Theories: Epistemologies
Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, “Ch’ixinakax utxiwa: A Reflection on the Practices and Discourses of Decolonization”
Juan López Intzín, “Epistemologies of the Heart” (“sp’ijilo’tan”)
Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Ch. 1, 2, 3, of Decolonizing Methodologies (pdf online)
Workshop, Kristen Holfeuer
Create working groups and propose projects—each WG will design and lead presentations for final two classes.
Week 7, 3/15
NO CLASS
Week 8, 3/22
Epistemologies
Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Epistemologies from the South (read “Manifesto,” “Minifesto,” “Introduction,” – Part Two optional)
Diana Taylor, ‘Prologue,’ ‘Coming into Presence,’ Ch. 1 of ¡Presente!. Notes
Enrique Dussel, The Invention of the Americas (p. 1-72, pdf attached)
Week 9, 3/29
The Zapatistas, https://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2014/05/27/between-light-and-shadow/
Taylor, “Death of the Political ‘I’” in Dancing with the Zapatistas.
Taylor, “Camino largo,” Ch. 3 of ¡Presente!
Subcomandante Marcos, Our Word Is Our Weapon, pages 5-81
Week 10, 4/5
Theories and Practices: Coming into Absence
Achille Mbembe, “Necropolitics”
Luiz Antonio Simas and Luiz Rufino, Encantamento sobre política de vida,
Week 11, 4/12
Decolonial Intersections; New Geographies of Knowledge
Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/ La Frontera: The New Mestiza
Tomson Highway, ‘The Place of the Indigenous Voice in the 21st Century’
Presentation, Lee Xie
Week 12, 4/19- Spring Break day, no classes scheduled
Week 13, 4/26
Oswald de Andrade, Cannibal Manifesto
Eduardo Viveros de Castro, Cannibal Metaphysics
Week 14, 5/3
Class Presentations
Week 15, 5/10
Present final web project
Class Expectations:
Class Attendance: The course is designed as a collaborative project in which informed and engaged participation is essential. Please have the reading completed by Monday’s session and be prepared with commentaries and questions. Because these live stream classes are not being recorded, attendance is mandatory. There will be an opportunity for questions in the chat box. Attendance will be recorded via the zoom session.
Response Postings and Papers:
Response Postings: Short comments (150-250 words) to the assigned readings must be posted by Friday 8 pm before the Monday class convenes to discuss them.
Response Papers: During the semester, each student will submit one 2-page response paper with questions for class discussion based the weekly reading assignments. Your papers, which will serve as a point of departure for our discussion on Wednesday, will focus on the analytical critiques and questions that have been generated in the course of reading the weekly assignments. Response papers should be posted to online at the latest by 3:00pm on Sundays.
Online Discussion/ Comment: Class will be an online, broken up into lecture/ discussion, followed by student responses, and break out groups focusing on collaborative projects.
Final Project: As a class, we will create a collaborative digital project as a final assignment. To prepare: students will break into groups (number to be decided) One 1000-word group outline of the collaborative topic (along with a breakdown of who will do what) will be due on January 25, and the final collaborative digital final project will be due by May 10. Students will work in groups, and be responsible for presentation a short, oral class presentation (20-30 minutes per group) on the topic of their final project for class feedback (April 19, 16). Please feel free to meet or contact me to discuss final projects. Grading breakdown: Final presentation and project= 50%, weekly attendance, participation, and postings =50%.
Assigned Texts will be online or on order at the NYU bookstore.
a. Departmental attendance policy
“Students are expected to comply with departmental attendance policy, which can be found here ”
b. Moses Center information
“The Henry and Lucy Moses Center for Students with Disabilities functions to determine qualified disability status and to assist students in obtaining appropriate accommodations and services. Services provided are designed to encourage independence and self-advocacy, backed by a comprehensive system of supports. Email: mosescsd@nyu.edu. Phone: (212) 998-4980.”
c. NYU Wellness exchange number/info
“The Wellness Exchange is your key to accessing the University’s extensive health and mental health resources designed to address your needs. You can call a private hotline (212-443-9999), available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which will put you in touch with a professional who can help to address day-to-day challenges as well as other health-related concerns. The hotline is also available if you just need to talk or want to call about a friend.”
d. NYU Bias response hotline
“The New York University Bias Response Line provides a mechanism through which members of our community can share or report experiences and concerns of bias, discrimination, or harassing behavior that may occur within our community. Email: bias.response@nyu.edu. Phone; (212) 998-2277