Walter D. Mignolo is an Argentine philosopher and semiotician. He is one of the founders of the modernity/coloniality school of thought. His early work focused on the history of writing and included discussion of literature, historiography, cartography, and cultural theory. In developing the idea of decoloniality, Mignolo builds on the work of Anibal Quijano and argues specifically for the necessity of epistemic decolonization. This is required, he argues, to undo the damage wrought by both modernity and by understanding modernity/coloniality only as modernity.

 

From Global Linear Thinking to a Multipolar World

Interview

First published in: Unmapping the Renaissance, ed. Angelika Stepken, Eva-Maria Troelenberg, Mariechen Danz, published by Villa Romana, Florence, and Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut Verlag für Modern Kunst, Nürnberg 2015.

2015

Radio Papesse talks to Walter D. Mignolo, professor at Duke University, USA. Twenty years after his publication The Darker Side of the Renaissance, he held the Key Lecture at the symposium Unmapping the Renaissance (12 – 15 March 2015, Villa Romana in cooperation with the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut).

Radio Papesse, an independent online radio station focusing on contemporary art, has been running for several years from its offices at Villa Romana. It accompanies the programme of exhibitions and events with interviews, live streaming and debates.

Radio Papesse in conversation with Walter D. Mignolo (2015)