Coloniality, Enlightenment rationality, and capitalism have estranged humans from themselves. The evidence is plain: for centuries, intellectual thought has grappled with the task of healing this existential rupture. Yet, in the near-totalizing grip of capitalist modernity, is self-discovery even possible? This course takes seriously the centuries-long effort to resolve the anxiety of the disassociated self. It asks why these efforts often unwittingly rely on the very structures of coloniality they seek to overcome, pushing us to examine the limits of our collective epistemologies. Concepts of what it means to be “human” are deeply entangled with hierarchical and racist scholarship. Likewise, the idea of “nature” is enmeshed within that same matrix. This course focuses on themes of gender transgression, the figure of the “Native,” historical anthropology, botany, the derangement of fascism, and theories of the post-human.
- Teacher: Cris Culton