Walter D Mignolo, William H. Wannamaker Professor of Literature and Romance Studies; Professor of Cultural Anthropology; Spanish & Latin American Studies

Contact Info:

Office Location:	125B Friedl Building
Office Phone:	919-668-1949
Email Address:
Web Page:	http://www.duke.edu/~wmignolo/

Office Hours:

By appointment

Education:

PhD, Semiotics and Literary Theory (Doctorat de Troisiéme Cycle)	École des Hautes Études (EPHE) as its VI Section: Sciences Économiques et Sociales, Paris, France	1974
Licenciatura in Philosophy and Literature--Filosofía y Letras	Universidad de Córdoba	1968

Specialties:

Spanish
Decolonial and Post-colonial Studies
Globalization, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity
Comparative Studies: Translation, Travel Narratives, Trans-Culturality
Critical Theory, Philosophy
Early Modern
Modern and Contemporary
Latin-American Studies
Caribbean Studies

Research Interests:

Global Coloniality, Critical Cosmopolitanism, Modern/Colonial World System

Postdocs Mentored

• Nelson Maldonado-Torres (Scholarly year 2003-2004)  
• Bernal Herrera (Fall 2009)  

Representative Publications   (More Publications)

1. Walter D. Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thinking (1999), Princeton: Princeton University Press
2. The Geopolitics of Knowledge and the Colonial Difference, SAQ, vol. 101.1 (2003), pp. 57-96
3. Globalization and the Borders of Latinity, in The Latin American Perspectives on Globalization. Ethics, Politics and Alternative Visions, edited by Mario Saenz (2002), pp. 77-101, New York: Bowman and Littlefield
4. Globalization, Civilization Processes and the Relocation of Languages and Cultures, in The Cultures of Globalization, edited by F. Jameson and M. Miyoshi (1998), Durham: Duke University Press
5. Walter D. Mignolo, The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality and Colonization (1995), Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press

Selected Invited Lectures

1. "The role of the humanities in the corporate university: a decolonial view from Latin/o America", April 8, 2010, The Global Humanities Lecture Series, York College, Pennsylvania [available here]    
2. 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 [index_site.php]    
3. 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 [html]    
4. “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 [html]    
5. Re-Westernization, De-Westernization and De-Coloniality, June 2 and June 3, 2010, Two lectures delivered at Peking University and Renmi University, Beijing, China [633.shtml]    
6. Cosmopolitan Localism: A de-colonial shifting of the Kantian's legacies, May 31, 2010, Pusan National University, South Korea    
7. Epistemic Desobedience and the Decolonial Option: A Manifesto, May 27, 2010, Seoul National University, Institute of Latin American Studies [news0301_view.jsp]    
8. Second thought on geopolitics of kowledge and understanding, Inaugural Panel, May 10, 2010, Goldsmiths College, London, Workshop on Politics of Knowledge [386]    
9. 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 [htm]    
10. The communal and the decolonial, Keynote Address, April 16, 2010, 20th Annual Philosophy, Interpretation and Culture Conference    
11. The Global South and World Disorder, XXXth Distinguished Lecture, Journal of Anthropological Research, March 04, 2010, University of New Mexico [pdf]    
12. The State We' re In- Cosmopolitanism, March 7, 2009, Birkbeck College, London [legal-event-details.cfm]    
13. Anti-Systemic Movements and Decolonial Projects, December 31, 2009, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico    
14. 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]    
15. Epistemic Disobedience and the Decolonial Option, March 5, 2009, Goldsmiths College, London [available here]    
16. Geopoliticas del conocimiento y formaciones disciplinarias, August 3-August 14, 2009, Quito, Ecuador [contenido_oferta_academica.php]    
17. The Advent of Black Thinkers and the Limits of Continental Philosophy, June 29, 2009, Amsterdam, NiNsee [pdf]    
18. Transmodernity and Global Decoloniality, March 13/14, 2009, Tate Britain Museum, London [htm]    

Walter D. Mignolo received his Doctorat de 3ème Cycle from the École des Hautes Études, Paris, in 1974. He has taught at the Université de Toulouse, Indiana University, and the University of Michigan. Among his books on textual and literary theories are Elementos para una teoría del texto literario (Barcelona, 1978) and Teoría del texto e interpretación de textos (Mexico, 1986). His current research focuses on global coloniality and the history of capitalism. His most recent book, Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thinking (Princeton U.P., 2000). He edited with an introduction Capitalismo y Geopolitica del Conocimiento: la Filosofia de la Liberacion en el Debate Intelectual Contemporaneo (Buenos Aires, 2001). His previous book, The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality and Colonization (1995), was awarded the Katherine Singers Kovac Prize by the Modern Language Association. He co-edited with Elizabeth Hill Boone, Writing without Words: Alternative Literacies in Mesoamérica and the Andes (1994) with contributions from art historians, anthropologists, historians and cultural critics. He is founder and co-editor of Disposition (The University of Michigan) and co-founder and co-editor of Nepantla: Views from South, a journal published by Duke University Press. He has published in Comparative Studies in Society and History, L'Homme, Colonial Latin American Review, South Atlantic Quarterly, Renaissance Quarterly, Hispanic Issues, Poetics Today, Public Culture, Latin American Cultural Studies, etc.