Coloniality, Slavery, and the Holocaust: Introducing the Decolonial Option
The events of slavery and the holocaust illuminate the geopolitical sources of decolonial thinking in the Global South and critical thought in the Global North. The course builds a dialogue between these currents of thought, and introduces the decolonial option as a path towards global justice. We will evaluate the potentials of the decolonial option in relation to coexisting options. The seminar brings together notions such as disposable life in the economic domain and bare life from the political domain. The first comes from decolonial thinking while the second from critical thought. The course benefits from the local history of Middelburg, a city that was central in the Dutch history of Slavery and that suffered great destruction during the ‘Second World War’. The course will also explore the relations between museums and the coloniality of representation and memory.
