Gnoseology, Aesthesis, Decoloniality

What we (in general) do is very much entangled with what we think and talk of what we do.
Neither aesthesis, even less aesthetics was a keyword in Aristotle's Poetics.
Aesthesis was a keyword in Aristotle´s De Anima. But what is more, not even art appears next to what today could be called, in retrospect, ¨artistic practice¨ (tragedy, epic, comedy).
So, when and where art and aesthetics became so domineering to eclipse poetics and aesthetics and to convince us that art and aesthetics are universal concepts that authorize to speak of Chinese art and aesthetics, African art and aesthetics, Aztec and Maya art and aesthetics? Clearly an aberration of modernity and careless acceptance of Western European regional vocabulary, institutionally consecrated in the six languages of Western Europe grounded in Greek and Latin. Hence, one of the tasks of decolonial praxical investigations--that I will address in this talk-- is the aesthetic reconstitution of aesthetics consistent with the gnoseological reconstitution of epistemology.

Walter D. Mignolo is a William H. Wannamaker Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Global Studies and the Humanities at Duke University. He was associated researcher at Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Quito, 2002-2020 and an Honorary Research Associate for CISA (Center for Indian Studies in South Africa), Wits University at Johannesburg (2014-2020). He is a Senior Advisor of DOC (Dialogue of Civilizations) Research Institute, based in Berlin and received a Doctor Honoris Causa Degree from the University National of Buenos Aires, Argentina and an Honorary Degree from the University of London, Goldsmith. Among his books related to the topic are: The Darker Side of the Renaissance. Literacy, Territoriality and Colonization (1995); Delinking: The Rhetoric of Modernity, the Logic of Coloniality and the Grammar of Decoloniality (2007). Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thinking (2000); and The Idea of Latin America (2006). Forthcoming: On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analysis, Praxis, co-authored with Catherine Walsh (2018); and The Politics of Decolonial Investigations (2021).

Scientific Organization: Matteo Lucchetti (Museo delle Civiltà), Giulia Beatrice, Sara Vitacca, Carmen Belmonte

_{Image: DAAR – Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti, ENTE DI DECOLONIZZAZIONE (ENTITY OF DECOLONIZATION) – BORGO RIZZA, 2022, installation view during the activation at Mostra d’Oltremare in Naples, photo: Pietro Onofri. With the support of the Italian Council (10th Edition 2021) program to promote Italian contemporary art in the world by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity for the Italian Ministry of Culture}