Emancipatory intellectual traditions in Latin America and the Caribbean (20th-21st centuries)

Ideas about emancipation have been part of Latin American and Caribbean intellectual traditions throughout the 20th century. The questioning of social, cultural, political, and economic differences by intellectuals, politicians, and cultural figures shaped, at different times, dense cores of meaning that accounted for historical contexts such as revolutions, so-called “populisms,” Caribbean anticolonial movements, and, more recently, the mobilizations that swept across the subcontinent in the first decades of the 21st century. Ideas such as “anti-imperialism,” “Latin Americanism,” “development,” “dependency,” “populism,” “revolution,” “democracy,” “feminism,” and “good living” became central to the articulation of various aspects of the region's political and cultural life. These concepts expressed the diverse dimensions in which profound oppressions were interwoven with shared forms of emancipation. The identification and questioning of the ways in which exploitation, racism, gender differences and geopolitical dependence unfolded in the history of Latin America and the Caribbean were the driving force behind the development of political and/or cultural processes that aimed, at least from the level of ideas, to encourage a profound transformation of this state of affairs.

According to Arcadio Díaz Quiñones, intellectual traditions are neither possessed nor inherited. On the contrary, they must be sought out. This endeavor entails a process of historiographical and conceptual review. The study of such ideological constructions—rational, emotional, and imaginative—is an enormous challenge for anyone interested in this topic. Any aspiration to a comprehensive understanding of the various issues mentioned is a task as titanic as it is impossible, as Edward Said observed. Rather, it is necessary to identify, point out, or consider narrowing down a possible angle for analyzing concepts and discourses that highlighted the dual condition that has defined the region from the 20th century to the present: domination and liberation. Utopian, liberating, regenerative, and egalitarian discourses, articulated from diverse positions ranging from socialist lefts to revolutionary nationalisms in all their variations, form part, despite their heterogeneity and differences, of a single collective certainty: emancipation in all its dimensions. The defeats suffered at many points in the 20th century and the uncertainties that plague them today compel us to rethink the difficulties that shaped these traditions, many of which stem not from their adversaries but from their own resistance, as Carlos Altamirano points out. Therefore, an agenda for contemporary critical thought must revisit, revise, and contribute new ideas to guide collective action, drawing on theoretical currents ranging from Marxism, dependency theory, developmentalism, anticolonialism, feminism, and discourses on race, as well as authors such as José Martí, José Carlos Mariátegui, Víctor Haya de la Torre, Fernando Ortiz, Theotonio Dos Santos, Ernesto Laclau, Dora Barrancos, Rita Segato, Verónica Gago, Walter Mignolo, Álvaro García Linera, and Mauricio Tenorio Trillo, among many others. Based on these constellations of concepts and authors, the need for a study of emancipatory traditions takes on a new light, in the continuous search to chart a path for the future that will make our unjust societies freer and more equal.

Objective

The overall objective is to explore the most significant ideas and authors that shaped the emancipatory intellectual tradition in Latin America and the Caribbean between the 20th and 21st centuries. 

Specific objectives

• To create a historical geography of the main ideas of the emancipatory intellectual tradition in Latin America and the Caribbean between the 20th and 21st centuries 
• Analyze the specialized literature on the history of intellectual thought and understand its main contributions. 
• To study central works and authors that shaped the emancipatory tradition in the region from the point of view of their reflective contributions, knowledge, and cultural, aesthetic, and emotional dimensions. 
• To consider the contributions made regarding central problems in the region, such as the issue of social change, gender, class and race differences, as well as specific topics such as those associated with populism, democracies and good living. 
• To promote a critical reading of the Latin American and Caribbean emancipatory intellectual tradition, analyzing both the contributions and reflections achieved as well as its "points of escape" and aporias.
• To take stock of this school of thought in light of the problems currently facing the region. 

• The emancipatory intellectual tradition: definitions, approaches and conceptual frameworks
• “Critical thinking”: a possible path
• The beginnings: colonialism, anti-colonialism and war
• From Mariátegui, Haya de la Torre, Ortiz and Mella: indigenism, blackness and socialism 
• Revolutionary nationalisms between nation, anti-imperialism and reform
• The development paradigm: obsessions and critical perspectives in Latin American thought
• Dependence or revolution. Debates surrounding change 
• The debates on democracy, socialism and (another) crisis of Marxism 
• Gender, race and class: social markers in the 21st century 

• Agustín Cueva, “Democracy in Latin America: Bride of Socialism or Concubine of Imperialism,” in Latin American Studies, no. 7, 49-54.
• Arcadio Díaz Quiñones, “Fernando Ortiz (1881-1969) and Allan Kardec (1804-1869). Spiritism and transculturation”, in On the principles. Caribbean intellectuals and tradition, Buenos Aires, UNQ, 2005, , 289-317.
• Arcadio Díaz Quiñones, On Caribbean Intellectuals and Tradition, Buenos Aires, UNQ, 2005.
• Carlos Altamirano, The Invention of Our America. Obsessions, Narratives and Debates on the Identity of Latin America, Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI editores, 2021.
• Carlos Altamirano, For a program of intellectual history and other essays, Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI editores, 2005, 9-24.
• David Cortez, “The social construction of ‘good living’ in Ecuador. Genealogy of the design and political management of life”, in Aportes Andinos, no. 28, 2011.
• Diego Giller, “The Dependency Years. Some Issues Regarding Dialectics of Dependency”, Buenos Aires, Clacso, 2016, pp. 1-53. 
• Dora Barrancos, Feminisms in Latin America, Mexico, El Colegio de México, 2020, “introduction”.
• Elizabeth Jelin, “Class, gender and ethnicity/race inequalities: historical realities, analytical approaches”, in Ensambles, no. 1, 2014, pp. 11-36.
• Enrique Dussel, “The political and democracy”, in Ávalos Tenorio, (Coord.), Redefining the political, Mexico, UAM, 2002, pp. 203-228.
• Enzo Traverso, Melancholy of Marxism, history and memory, Buenos Aires, FCE, pp. 57-109.
• Enzo Traverso, Revolution. An Intellectual History, Buenos Aires, FCE, pp. 15-56.
• Ernesto Guevara, Socialism and the New Man in Cuba, Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI editores, 1979 (selection)
• Ernesto Laclau, Hegemony and Strategy: Towards a Radicalization of Democracy, Buenos Aires, FCE, 2004, Chapter 4.
• Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, Buenos Aires, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2005 (selection)
• Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependency and Development in Latin America, Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI editores, 1977 (selection)
• Fernando Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint of Tobacco and Sugar, Barcelona, ​​Ariel, 1973. (selection)
• José Arico, The hypothesis of Writings on Socialism in Latin America, Buenos Aires, Editorial Sudamericana, 1999, pp. 65-130.
• José Carlos Mariátegui, Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality, Buenos Aires, Ediciones El Andariego, (Selection)
• José Martí, Our America, (selection)
• Luiz Bernardo Pericás, Che Guevara and the economic debate in Cuba, Havana, Casa de las Américas, 2014, 187-216.
• Marc Angenot, Of hegemonies and dissidences, Córdoba, 2010, pp. 35-57.
• María Esperanza Casullo and Harry Brown Araúz (Coord.), Populism in America: The missing piece to understand a global phenomenon, Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI editores, 2023, pp. 17-38.
• Maristela Svampa, Debates on Indianism, Development, Dependency and Populism, Buenos Aires, Edhasa, 2016.
• Martín Bergel, “Anti-anti-Americanism in Latin America (1898-1930)” Nueva Sociedad, No. 236, November-December 2011, pp. 152-167.
• Oscar Terán, “Amauta: Vanguard and Revolution”, in Altamirano, C. (Dir), History of Intellectuals in America: The Avatars of the Lettered City in the 20th Century, Buenos Aires, Katz, 2010, pp. 169-191.
• Pablo Stefanoni, Has rebellion turned right-wing? How anti-progressivism and anti-political correctness are building a new common sense (and why the left should take them seriously), Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI editores, 2021, 13-62.
• Patricia Funes, Political Ideas in Latin America, Mexico, 2014, 63-95.
• Perry Anderson, “Thought: A Critical Look at French Culture”, in Critique and Emancipation, no. 1, 2008, pp. 177-234.
• Peter Wade, “Latin American Racisms from a Global Perspective”, in Nueva Sociedad, no. 292, 2021, pp. 25-41.
• Pierre Bourdieu, “The social conditions of the circulation of ideas”, in Intellectuals, politics and power, Buenos Aires, Eudeba, 1999, 159-170.
• Quentin Skinner, “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” [1969], in Language, Politics and History, Bernal, University of Quilmes, 2007, pp. 109-164
• Quijano, Anibal (2011) ““Good living” between development and the decolonization of power” Ecuador Debate Magazine, No. 84, Quito, 77-88.
• Rafael Rojas, The Tree of Ideas and Power in Latin America, Mexico, Turner.
• Razming Keucheyan, Hemisphere: A Map of New Critical Thought, Madrid, Siglo XXI España, 2013, pp. 9-50.
• René Zavaleta Mercado, The Self-Determination of the Masses, Buenos Aires, Siglo XXI editores-Clacso, 2015 (selection)
• Ricardo Melgar Bao, Haya de la Torre and Julio Antonio Mella in Mexico. Exile and its 1928, Lima-Buenos Aires, Ediciones del Centro Cultural de Cooperación Floreal Gonini, 2013.
• Roberto Fernández Retamar, Caliban, Buenos Aires, Clacso, 2004 (Selection)
• Roberto Schwarz, “Ideas out of place”, in Amante and F. Garramuño (eds.), Absurd Brazil. Polemics in Brazilian culture, Buenos Aires, Biblos, 2000, pp. 45-60.
• Soledad Stoessel, “21st Century Populisms: A New Phase of the National-Popular Turn of the Beginning of the Century?, in Cuestiones de Sociología, No. 28, 2023.
• Theotonio dos Santos, The theory of Balance and perspective, Mexico, Plaza y James, 2002, pp. 42-68.
• Verónica Gago, Feminist Power, or the Desire to Change Everything, Madrid, Traficante de sueños, 2019, pp. 95-124.

The basic requirements for taking a seminar are:

• Availability of at least 4 hours per week to dedicate to the seminar course.
• Internet access.
• Reasonable handling of communication and computer tools.
• Language proficiency in the language in which the course will be taught. The official languages ​​are Spanish and Portuguese.

The seminars last 12 weeks, plus the completion of a final project. A total of 90 hours of dedication will be credited.

A course consists of twelve classes, each accompanied by required reading bibliography, supplementary bibliography, discussion forums and training activities proposed by the teaching team, partial deliveries and a final project.
The course is online and asynchronous. Some instructors may propose synchronous activities. In those cases, the time and date will be agreed upon beforehand between the teaching team and the students to ensure everyone's participation.
To pass the seminar, you must participate in at least 80% of the discussion forums and activities proposed by the teachers, have completed the scheduled partial deliveries, and pass the final work.

The possible payment methods are credit card, bank transfer and bank deposit.