220136 Critical Theories of and on the Americas: From Coloniality to Marxism (S) (WiSe 2020/2021)

The Americas have been a space in which ideas coming from the (European) Metropolises have not only found an echo and reception, but where they have been transformed and modified. In this sense, there would not be a pure reception, but any reception would be a transforming re-appropriation.
From the conquest and the colony to contemporary thought, the Americas have been this space of transformation of ideas and thought. From the Arts, as in the case of literary modernism of the early twentieth century, to receptions of political ideals as in the case of the incipient US-American democracy at the beginning of the nineteenth century (Tocqueville) and the receptions of Marxism from Martí (Cuba) to Mariátegui (Peru) and Recabarren (Chile), are examples of how in the Americas reception is to a greater extent a transformation and resignification that has to enrich and modify perspectives. In this same sense, more recently, decolonial thought has set out to rethink and question the Western tradition in order to deconstruct it.
The course intends to investigate, from a historical and interdisciplinary perspective, some key moments in the History of Ideas of the Americas, in order to understand the particularity and specificity of this space of thought. It introduces into the broad debate of critical reflection of the particular status of the Americas in the emerging capitalist word-system.

Requirements for participation, required level

A strong focus will be on the reading and interpretation of selected written documents across this period. Like the seminar, this course will be in English and requires fluency in that language from its participants.