GSSC Seminar Series
09 December 2025
Decolonial Theories and the Global South:
Book Presentation of “Dekoloniale Theorien zur Einführung” (Junius 2025)
Frederik Schulze (University of Cologne), Philipp Wolfesberger (University of Bielefeld)
12:00-13:00
“Decolonizing” is an omnipresent catchword in current discussions about globalization, global power relations, and identity politics, but the political-philosophical debates from Latin America and the Global South that gave rise to this term are still largely ignored by the broader public in Germany. In a recently published introductory book, we translate these theories to a German audience and discuss the most important decolonial works, figures, and concepts as well as their historical origins, current developments, and advantages and problems. In addition to key representatives such as Aníbal Quijano, Enrique Dussel, María Lugones, and Rita Segato, we address important concepts like “coloniality of power,” “coloniality of gender,” “decoloniality,” and “buen vivir”.
In today’s talk, we briefly explore the main arguments of decolonial theories and focus then on feminist approaches and the productive decolonial exchange between Latin America, Africa, the Arab world, and East Asia. With their emphasis on exteriority and non-Western epistemologies, decolonial theories give priority to the Global South and shift the center of philosophical debates away from Western academia.
Moderation: Prof Dr Silke Hensel (IHILA)
PD Dr Frederik Schulze is principal investigator in the DFG research unit “Xenocracy on Site. Administration and Cultural Interdependence in the Premodern Era” at the University of Cologne. He has published widely on migration, colonialism, global history, and developmentalism. His second book “Wissen im Fluss” (2022) explores the global history of Latin American dam building in the twentieth century.
Dr Philipp Wolfesberger is a political scientist who specializes in political sociology and political theory, focusing particularly on Latin America. He is a research and teaching associate, as well as the executive director, at the Center for InterAmerican Studies at Bielefeld University. His research fields range from state transformation and solidarity to anticolonial theories.