Walter D. Mignolo, William Hane Wannamaker Distinguished Professor Emeritus

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https://openeducationalberta.ca/curriculuminfluences/front-matter/introduction/

Mignolo’s research and teaching have been devoted, in the past 30 years, to understanding and unraveling the historical foundation of the modern/colonial world system and imaginary since 1500. In his research, the modern/colonial world system and imaginary is tantamount with the historical foundation of Western Civilization and its expansion around the globe. His research stands on four basic premises: a) there is no world-system before 1500 and the integration of America in the Western Christian (European) imaginary; b) the world-system generated the idea of “newness” (the New World) and of modernity and c) there is no modernity without coloniality—coloniality is constitutive no derivative of modernity; d) the modern/colonial imaginary was mounted and maintained on the invention of the Human and Humanity that provided the point of reference for the invention of racism and sexism together with the invention of nature.

Briefly stated, Mignolo’s research has been and continues to be devoted to exposing modernity/coloniality as a machine that generates and maintains un-justices and to exploring decolonial ways of delinking from the modernity/coloniality. Among his books related to these topics are: The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality, and Colonization (1995), which was translated into Chinese and Spanish in 2015 will receive a Turkish translation shortly; Delinking: The Rhetoric of Modernity, the Logic of Coloniality, and the Grammar of Decoloniality (2007), translated into German, French, Swedish, Rumanian, and Spanish; Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking (2000), translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Korean; and Turkish in progress); and The Idea of Latin America (2006), translated into Spanish, Korean and Italian. On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analysis, Praxis, co-authored with Catherine Walsh, was published in 2018 (with an Italian translation in progress) and in 2021 he published The Politics of Decolonial Investigations.

The political dimension of his work, in the past fifteen years has been increasingly devoted to the public sphere where he has worked with artists, curators, and journalists, to write op-eds, give finterviews (in English and Spanish), and to co-organize and co-teach summer schools in Middelburg, Bremen, UNC, and Duke. He also delivers workshops for faculty and graduate students in South and Central America, Asia, and Europe.

Mignolo was awarded the Katherine Singer Kovaks prize (MLA) for The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality and Colonization (1996) and the Frantz Fanon Prize by the Caribbean Philosophical Association for The Idea of Latin America (2006). His work has been translated into German, Italian, French, Swedish, Rumanian, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, and Korean. He is an Honorary Research Associate for CISA (Center for Indian Studies in South Africa) of Wits University at Johannesburg. Recently, he joined the Dialogue of Civilizations (DOC) Program Council as a senior adviser. Additionally, he received a Doctor Honoris Causa Degree (2016) from the National University of Buenos Aires in Argentina (http://novedades.filo.uba.ar/novedades/entrega-del-diploma-doctor-honoris-causa-walter-mignolo) and an Honorary Degree (2018) from the University of London-Goldsmith (https://www.gold.ac.uk/honorands/walter-d-mignolo/).

Contact Info:

Office Location:	125B Friedl Building, Box 90670, Durham, NC 27708
Email Address:
Web Pages:	https://globalstudies.trinity.duke.edu/ http://waltermignolo.com/

Office Hours:

Tuesdays and Thursdays by appointment (between 1pm and 3 pm) 

Education:

Ph.D.

École Pratique des Hautes Études (France)

1974

Research Interests:

Global Coloniality, Critical Cosmopolitanism, Modern/Colonial World System

Keywords:

Colonies • Decolonization • Geopolitics • Knowledge • Muser Mentor

Postdocs Mentored

• Julo Pinto (Augsut 1, 2014--July 31, 2015)  
• Andres Arguello Parra (Fall Semester 2013)  
• Nelson Maldonado-Torres (Scholarly year 2003-2004)  
• Bernal Herrera (Fall 2009)  

Representative Publications   (More Publications)

1. Mignolo, WD, The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality and Colonization (1995), The University of Michigan Press  [abs]

Selected Invited Lectures

1. Hegel's Spirit and the Opium War: Local Histories/Global Designs, March 14, 2012, Advanced Institute for Cross Disciplinary Research, City University of Hong Kong    
2. A Decolonial Archeology of Hegel’s Spirit: The Ming Dinasty, Pope Alexander VI and Matteo Ricci, March 28, 2012, Advanced Institute for Crossdisciplinary Studies, City University of Hong Kong    
3. Critical Theory and Decolonial Thinking: Two Parallel Roads to the Future, April 30 to May 1, 2010, Keynote address, New Directions in Critical Theory, Grad Students Conference, Tucson, Arizona    
4. The Spirit Croces de Atlantic and Move to the US: Hiroshima, Human Rights, Bandung and the Cold War., April 11, 2012, Advanced Institute for Crossdisciplinary Studies, City University of Hong Kong    
5. The Spirit Crossed the Pacific and Returned to the East Closing the Cycle of Western Imperial Expansion: Dewesternization and Decoloniality, April 25, 2012, Advanced Institute for Cross Disciplinary Research, City University of Hong Kong    
6. The Spirit Returns to the East: Rewesternization, Dewesternization, Decoloniality and the Roads to Future, May 22, 2012, Beijing, in 25th Conference of the Academy of Latinity - "Humanity and Difference in the Global Age", held at the Wenjin Hotel in Beijing, from the 21st to the 23th of May 2012, in cooperation with Tsinghua University    
7. Cosmopolitan Localism: A de-colonial shifting of the Kantian's legacies, May 31, 2010, Pusan National University, South Korea    
8. Epistemic Desobedience and the Decolonial Option: A Manifesto, May 27, 2010, Seoul National University, Institute of Latin American Studies    
9. Coloniality and Decolonial Thinking: An Introduction, June 3, 2011, Hong Kong    
10. Second thought on geopolitics of kowledge and understanding, Inaugural Panel, May 10, 2010, Goldsmiths College, London, Workshop on Politics of Knowledge    
11. De-Schooling and Learning to Unlearn: Ivan Illich's Legacies and the Project Amawtay Wasi, June 22, 2011, The University of Bremen, Germany    
12. Who speaks for the "Human" in Western Humanism? A decolonial perspective, April 26-28, 2010, XXI Conference de l' Academie de la Latinite, Cordoba, Spain    
13. Globalization and the geopolitics of knowing: A decolonial view of the Humanities, April 23, 2010, Hilldale Lectures in the Arts and Humanities, the University of Wisconsin at Madison    
14. Global Linear Thinking, International Law and (De)Coloniality, July 1, 2011, Berlin, Goethe-Saal, Harnack-Haus, Max-Planc Gesellschaft    
15. “Geopolitics of Knowing/Understanding and American Studies,” Keynote address, April 8-11, 2010, American Studies as Transnational Practice, Texas Tech Comparative Literature Symposium, Lubbock, Texas    
16. The communal and the decolonial, Keynote Address, April 16, 2010, 20th Annual Philosophy, Interpretation and Culture Conference    
17. Modernity: The Way We Are, May 19, 2011, The University of Bremen, Germany    
18. Re-Westernization, De-Westernization and De-Coloniality, June 2 and June 3, 2010, Two lectures delivered at Peking University and Renmi University, Beijing, China    
19. The Global South and World Disorder, XXXth Distinguished Lecture, Journal of Anthropological Research, March 04, 2010, University of New Mexico    
20. The State We' re In- Cosmopolitanism, March 7, 2009, Birkbeck College, London [link.]    
21. Anti-Systemic Movements and Decolonial Projects, December 31, 2009, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico    
22. Between Cosmopolitanism and Empire: Europe, Human Rights, and Sovereignty, March 6, 2009, London, Birkbeck College [launchworkshopflyer+mignolo+birkbeck+empire+and+cosmopolitanism&hl=en&gl=us&sig=AHIEtbRhE7]    
23. Epistemic Disobedience and the Decolonial Option, March 5, 2009, Goldsmiths College, London [available here]    
24. Geopoliticas del conocimiento y formaciones disciplinarias, August 3-August 14, 2009, Quito, Ecuador [Boliv]    
25. The Advent of Black Thinkers and the Limits of Continental Philosophy, June 29, 2009, Amsterdam, NiNsee [B]    
26. Transmodernity and Global Decoloniality, March 13/14, 2009, Tate Britain Museum, London [Bourriau.]