Colonial and Postcolonial History 2025/2026
25 September – 7 November 2025, 11-14 and 15-17, room H4
"The dominance of “Europe” as the subject of all histories is a part of a much more profound theoretical condition under which historical knowledge is produced in the third world. This condition ordinarily expresses itself in a paradoxical manner. It is this paradox that I shall describe as the second everyday symptom of our subalternity, and it refers to the very nature of social science pronouncements. For generations now, philosophers and thinkers who shape the nature of social science have produced theories that embrace the entirety of humanity. As we well know, these statements have been produced in relative, and sometimes absolute, ignorance of the majority of humankind—that is, those living in non-Western cultures. This in itself is not paradoxical, for the more self-conscious of European philosophers have always sought theoretically to justify this stance. The everyday paradox of third-world social science is that we find these theories, in spite of their inherent ignorance of “us,” eminently useful in understanding our societies. What allowed the modern European sages to develop such clairvoyance with regard to societies of which they were empirically ignorant? Why cannot we, once again, return the gaze?" (Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 2000, p.29)
How was European gaze over the rest built? How did this epistemological project underpin the exercise of colonial power and imperial authority? To answer these questions, we will explore the entanglement between knowledge production, cultural representation, and the exercise of sovereignty. The aim is to trace how scientific classifications, travel narratives, and artistic imaginaries contributed to the construction of Europe as the center of universal history while relegating the rest of the world to the status of its past, its periphery, or its “otherness”. The first part of the course will therefore highlight the relationship between epistemology and sovereignty, showing how discourses of modernity and progress functioned as tools of legitimisation for imperial expansion.
The second part of the course will focus on the deconstruction of the epistemology of modernity through an approach that combines historical narratives and critical thinking.
The seminars will interrogate the idea of modernity considering it as a project rather than as a fact, dissecting the material and immaterial factors that contributed to its becoming an unquestionable universal.
Starting from Edward Said’s seminal work on the role that culture played in the construction and self-reinforcement of the (British) empire, the discussion will then head towards subversive and disobedient epistemological practices that contributed to the undoing of the supremacy of Western-centric forms of knowledge production.
We’ll then move to understand the idea of de-linking – that is, discarding the causality between (Western) modernity and progress – as articulated by Walter Mignolo and Catherine Walsh as the necessary premise for a militant epistemological disobedience.
25 September – 7 November 2025, 11-14 and 15-17, room H4
"The dominance of “Europe” as the subject of all histories is a part of a much more profound theoretical condition under which historical knowledge is produced in the third world. This condition ordinarily expresses itself in a paradoxical manner. It is this paradox that I shall describe as the second everyday symptom of our subalternity, and it refers to the very nature of social science pronouncements. For generations now, philosophers and thinkers who shape the nature of social science have produced theories that embrace the entirety of humanity. As we well know, these statements have been produced in relative, and sometimes absolute, ignorance of the majority of humankind—that is, those living in non-Western cultures. This in itself is not paradoxical, for the more self-conscious of European philosophers have always sought theoretically to justify this stance. The everyday paradox of third-world social science is that we find these theories, in spite of their inherent ignorance of “us,” eminently useful in understanding our societies. What allowed the modern European sages to develop such clairvoyance with regard to societies of which they were empirically ignorant? Why cannot we, once again, return the gaze?" (Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 2000, p.29)
How was European gaze over the rest built? How did this epistemological project underpin the exercise of colonial power and imperial authority? To answer these questions, we will explore the entanglement between knowledge production, cultural representation, and the exercise of sovereignty. The aim is to trace how scientific classifications, travel narratives, and artistic imaginaries contributed to the construction of Europe as the center of universal history while relegating the rest of the world to the status of its past, its periphery, or its “otherness”. The first part of the course will therefore highlight the relationship between epistemology and sovereignty, showing how discourses of modernity and progress functioned as tools of legitimisation for imperial expansion.
The second part of the course will focus on the deconstruction of the epistemology of modernity through an approach that combines historical narratives and critical thinking.
The seminars will interrogate the idea of modernity considering it as a project rather than as a fact, dissecting the material and immaterial factors that contributed to its becoming an unquestionable universal.
Starting from Edward Said’s seminal work on the role that culture played in the construction and self-reinforcement of the (British) empire, the discussion will then head towards subversive and disobedient epistemological practices that contributed to the undoing of the supremacy of Western-centric forms of knowledge production.
We’ll then move to understand the idea of de-linking – that is, discarding the causality between (Western) modernity and progress – as articulated by Walter Mignolo and Catherine Walsh as the necessary premise for a militant epistemological disobedience.
- Teacher: Tommaso Bobbio