Emerging predominantly from Latin America, ‘decolonial’ studies call attention to the fact that coloniality is not only not over, not post, but that it permeates almost all aspects of our lives: subjectivity, race, gender, language, as well as our epistemologies and pedagogies. This course will examine some of the basic elements of coloniality and the theories and practices that scholars and artists have developed to contest ongoing practices of “epistemicide.” Readings start with Columbus’ First letter (1493) and the Requerimiento (1513) and fast forward to works by Quijano, Sousa Santos, Dussel, Mignolo, Rivera Cusicanqui, Juan López Inztin, Wynter, and others. While the course focuses on decolonial struggles coming out of the Americas, students will be invited to question the geographies of thought that place Caribbean theorists (Fanon, Césaire, Hall, etc) in debates about colonialism that all but exclude the Americas.