240118 SE VM3 / VM6 - Contesting Empire (2019W)

In this course we will examine two critical discourses against Empire elaborated in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC): anti-colonialism and post-colonialism.

a) In the first part we scrutinize seminal texts of anti-colonial thought developed in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).

b) In the second part we examine the genealogy of the Postcolonial discourse from a Latin American perspective. Starting with the analysis of the Founding Statement of the Latin American Subaltern Studies Group (1993) it discusses the main topics of the Latin American postcolonial outlook: eurocentrism, racism, indigenization of the knowledge production, and political economy.

Learning Outcomes

• Evaluation of the centrality of LAC discourses in the shaping of contemporary critical scholarship
• Analyzing the social, political, and economic implications and consequences of empire.
• Revision of Latin American intellectual efforts to integrate the South-Asian Subaltern Debate into the continent´s context.
• Understanding the similarities and differences between anti-colonial and post-colonial approaches within Latin American scholarship

All texts will be provided as pdf files. If possible, students are encouraged to read the texts in their original language (Spanish).