Transmodernity

A Critical Introduction to Psychology is the first scholarly book, in which fifteen critical psychologists analyze chapters from popular Introduction to Psychology textbooks. In their critiques of mainstream (Euro-American) psychology, the authors of this edited volume also envision a pluriversal, transdisciplinary psychology, which is inclusive of critical voices from all over the world.

Building on this previous work, I pose the following series of questions: What is the potential readership of this literature of diaspora? Why does it not have a place in Spain’s book market? What is its future? In this essay, I frame Moroccan and Equatorial Guinean literature written in Castilian and Catalan within the broader context of border studies and approach it from the theoretical perspective of intercultural and postcolonial studies. There is a group of Moroccan authors who show in their writings what Enrique Dussel (2005) calls “alteridad cultural de la poscolonización,” incorporating the best of Spanish and European modernity to develop, not a cultural style that tends to a globalized unit, undifferentiated or empty, but a trans-modern pluriverse that draws on a number of cultural contexts: European, Asian, African, Islamic, Christian, and Latin American.

THE CROSSROADS OF TRANSMODERNITY*

                                                                              Rosa María Rodríguez Magda

                We call Transmodernity the paradigm that allows us to think the present. For this it is necessary to distinguish it from what Modernity and Postmodernity have meant. Our time is not defined by the prefix "post" but by the prefix "trans". Transmodernity, however equivocal interpretations exist, is not confined to a postcolonial discourse, neither decolonial, nor multicultural, nor transpersonal, nor does it pretend to be a happy goal that bridges the errors of history. In its descriptive aspect it proposes to analyze the processes of transformation of the current culture, technoeuphoric and at the same time immersed in deep economic and geopolitical crises. From a vital point of view, it tries to trace ways of transgression, in order to transcend the closures in which the new Great Fact of Globalization intends to lock us in. I distinguish narratives of the celebration, which reiterate an accepted but supposedly novel topic, from the narratives of the limit or from the fracture that they struggle to think and show what has not yet been conceptualized, to say what has yet to be named. Only from the latter will we be able to outline paths towards a fuller life, a more innovative art and a more livable social sphere.

* Translated by Jessica Aliaga Lavrijsen

Cinema can capture the real. Its images can document the zeitgeist of contemporary China, its huge transformation in the last decades. Contrary to the Fifth Generation’s films –Zhang Yimou’s and Chen Kaigé’s historical and rural dramas–, the new generation of Chinese filmmakers return to the urban space,
showing the edges of the new capitalist cities. The usual landscapes of their films are shantytowns, building sites and no-man’s lands where the main characters live or work. Immigrants, bohemians, taxi drivers, pickpockets and other criminals
star in fictions that are very close to the documentary mode. Sixth Generation filmmakers such as Jia Zhang-ke, Wang Bing, Li Yang, Wang Xiaoshuai and Lou Ye, show interest in the urban conflicts of this time, and that’s the reason to also call them the Urban Generation.
In the last years two films have stood out among them. Firstly, in the documentary field, 'Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks' (Wang Bing, People’s Republic of China, 2003), an ambitious chronicle about the decline of an old industrial district in Shenyang. Director Wang Bing worked solo shooting with a digital camera for a year and a half to get almost a monument-film: nine hours divided in three parts ('Rust', 'Remnants' and 'Rails'), the visual memory of a territory. “Film this place. Soon here nothing remains”, a worker requested him directly at the beginning of the film. So now we can use those images to know what that place was like and, above all, how it was destroyed.
The other key film of the Sixth Generation could be 'Sanxia haoren' [Still Life] (Jia Zhang-ke, People’s Republic of China, 2006), a feature film shot in a real place also doomed to extinction: the town of Fengjie during its last days, before
it disappeared after being first demolished and later submerged under the waters of the Three Gorges Dam. Still Life shows different stories and characters in that setting, rescuing its last images and opening a visual reflection about the transformations
in present China.
Two years after this experience, another Jia Zhang-ke film, 'Er shi si cheng ji' [24 Hours City] (Jia Zhang-ke, People’s Republic of China, 2008), mixed fiction and documentary conventions to explain how an old weapon factory left its site to new luxury buildings. That factory summarized the Communist period, so in this film Jia recorded testimonies from the real workers, edited together with stories of fictional characters played by professional actresses. Its theme is very close to Wang Bing’s 'Tie Xi Qu', but it uses a different mise-en-scène.
All these films take a look at Chinese cities by paying attention to their conflicts and contradictions, and we can use them in order to analyse both the cities’ urban and economic transformations and also their film representation.

In the Basque maritime milieu, oral tradition has played an essential role in the passing down of
lessons and means of understanding how society is organised. In this article, we look at some of the
most relevant contents and expressions from this tradition, paying particular attention to a time in
which maritime life and society are responding to a situation of transmodernity and change. Previous
forms of oral expression have been downgraded in a new maritime environment but nonetheless,
stories explaining identity and social life continued to be created and reinterpreted.

Resumen En esta investigación resumo alguno de los planteamientos principales del giro decolonial, reconociendo las aportaciones de Nelson Maldonado y Ramón Grosfoguel. El proyecto del giro decolonial se apoya en la crítica de lo que Aníbal Quijano llama como colonialidad-modernidad, las relaciones de poder y dominación impuestas desde el proceso de colonización en América y que aún permanecen tras los procesos de independencia y emancipación política. Este proceso de dominación colonial es indesligable de la producción intelectual de la modernidad. Se asume una relación de complicidad entre la modernidad y la colonialidad. Sin embargo, estas jerarquías de poder colonial no se combaten descartando la Modernidad, sino que requiere repensar los supuestos ontológicos, que definieron el ser de los colonizados; epistémicos, que establecieron la legitimidad de unos conocimientos sobre otros; y éticos que fundamentaron el colonialismo y la colonialidad. Con Enrique Dussel vemos la necesidad de un posicionamiento transmoderno que atraviese la modernidad misma sin descartarla para abrir el espacio a múltiples voces y experiencias fronterizas críticas de la violencia de la colonialidad-modernidad. Es en el interior mismo de la red de poder colonial que los sujetos fronterizos resisten y articulan proyectos políticos no reconocidos por el discurso moderno.

Le concept d'écologie intégrale est d'une actualité criante : nous devons apprendre à tisser ensemble tant les divers courants écologistes que les différents enjeux de la crise planétaire que nous traversons. L'article propose, après une définition générale du concept d'écologie intégrale, l'explicitation de trois veines d'influence identifiées : une veine républicaine, une veine chrétienne et une veine transconfessionnelle. Cinq dimensions de l'écologie intégrale sont ensuite explicitées (technique, économique, politique, philosophique et spirituelle), présentées comme autant de strates géologiques de la crise. Leur prise en compte est jugée indispensable pour une compréhension intégrale de l'écologie. Par ailleurs, le défi d'une approche intégrale vise, à chacun de ces niveaux d'analyse, le dépassement des ornières de la pensée moderne qui crée des dichotomies là où il conviendrait de chercher des convergences.
« Integral ecology: linking approaches, integrating issues, weaving a vision »
The concept of integral ecology is a highly topical one: we must learn to weave together both the various ecological currents and the various issues of the planetary crisis we are going through. The article proposes, after a general definition of the concept of integral ecology, the explanation of three veins of influence which have been identified: a republican vein, a Christian vein and a transconfessional vein. Five dimensions of integral ecology (technical, economic, political, philosophical and spiritual) are then made explicit and are presented as the geological strata of the crisis. They are considered indispensable for an integral understanding of ecology. Moreover, the challenge of an integral approach should, at each of these levels of analysis, aim to overcome the ruts of modern thought which creates dichotomies where we should rather look for convergences.

[Índice y Presentación]
¿Cómo dialoga el universo de lo visual con las demás formas de representación simbólica en las distintas épocas de la historia latinoamericana? ¿Qué tensiones atraviesan hoy día el campo profesional de los estudios literarios y culturales? ¿Puede hablarse de post-humanismo en América Latina? ¿Cómo afecta la globalización los procesos de producción de conocimiento, las políticas culturales a nivel nacional, la relación interdisciplinaria, el campo transnacionalizado del latinoamericanismo? ¿De qué modo promover una "ecología de los saberes" en sociedades multiculturales? Dividido en tres partes que interactúan a nivel crítico y teórico (I. Imaginarios visuales, II. Literatura y estudios de área en un mundo global y III. Saber/Poder/Vivir en América Latina) este libro intenta aproximarse a esos y otros temas que ocupan en el presente la reflexión cultural desde/sobre América Latina: (post)modernidad, otredad, arte público, biopolítica, melancolía, violencia. Se articulan así dimensiones estéticas, políticas, ideológicas y sociales, desde la perspectiva de debates actuales que permiten inscribir la crítica a nueva luz y revisar con rigor sus cometidos, su metodología y su sentido histórico.

Enrique Dussel rethinks the concept of reason in relation to his project of liberation as a global dialogue between different geopolitical positions in opposition to the isolated task of an uprooted Cartesian thinker freed from materiality. Transmodernity aims to open up reason beyond its Eurocentric stronghold, to the pluriversality of the globe. Dussel finds resources for his project in the discourse ethics of Jürgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel, while he is at the same time critical of the neutral playing field or perfect symmetry under which a global rational dialogue might take place. In this chapter, I argue that Dussel’s emphasis on saving the reason of modernity from its violent excesses risks conceding too much to the reason of the center with the notion of dialogue. I argue that Dussel also gives us resources, and I think we should emphasize these, to orient our attention to the creativity of the transmodern project in the tensions that it produces with respect to the hegemonic geography of knowledge, rather than being limited to its moments of possible dialogue with the center. In closing, I turn to the thought of Frantz Fanon with the aim of engaging Dussel and Fanon in a decolonial inter-American dialogue. Fanon provides critical resources to think transmodern creative reason by illustrating the creative passions unleashed in the struggle for liberation.

Prólogo a ¡Hay moros en la costa! Literatura marroquí fronteriza en castellano y catalán, de Cristián H. Ricci.

Gema Pérez-Sánchez
University of Miami

¡Hay moros en la costa!—el cúmulo de muchos años de investigación, lectura, entrevistas y erudición por parte de su autor—es una obra de capital importancia en la divulgación de la valiosísima obra de autores y autoras marroquíes contemporáneos de expresión castellana y catalana. Se trata éste de un corpus hasta ahora poco y no muy sistemáticamente estudiado, salvo en contados artículos sueltos por un puñado de críticos—sobre todo marroquíes—y por el mismo Cristián H. Ricci quien, desde el principio, ha ido marcando la cartografía de este campo, delimitando el área de estudio y, ante todo, se ha entregado con pasión a la labor de diseminar la obra de estos escritores.
Hoy por hoy, se conocen bien los nombres de Laila Karrouch y Najat El Hachmi, por la importancia y novedad de ser las primeras escritoras bereberes-catalanas en publicar obras de autoficción y narrativa de gran calidad en catalán. De cualquier manera, el lector podrá descubrir entre estas páginas, gracias a la generosidad y el trabajo incansable de Ricci, a otros valiosísimos escritores de importancia capital para las letras hispanas y catalanas. Entre ellos y ellas, cabe mencionar a las escritoras marroquíes de expresión castellana desconocidas para la mayoría de estudiosos de la literatura contemporánea en castellano, como lo son Sara Alaui, Karima Aomar Toufali, Sanae Chairi, o Lamiae El Amrani, quienes a partir de esta sustanciosa obra de Ricci empezarán, sin duda, a recibir la misma atención de la que han gozado Karrouch y El Hachmi (y más recientemente el también amazigh-catalán, Saïd El Kadaoui). Y también rescata el crítico argentino la obra de grandísima calidad de narradores de deliciosa pericia e intrincadas armazones narratológicas como Larbi El Harti, Ahmed Ararou o Mohammed Lahchiri, felices descubrimientos, lectores, al menos para la que estas líneas redacta.
Ricci apuntala su estudio de los autores más recientes delineando la historia literaria hispano-marroquí y rescatando nombres como los de Mohammad Sabbag, Mohamed Ibn Azzuz Hakim, Mohamed Chakor, Said Jdidi y, más recientemente, Mohamed Sibari, Ahmed Daoudi, Abderrahman El Fathi, Mezouar El Idrissi y Mohamed Bouissef Rekab—narrador prolífico y de gran impacto en las letras hispano-marroquíes. Y por si fuera poco, Ricci nos devuelve—o nos coloca en su apropiado contexto—al “escritor fronterizo” larachense-malagueño Sergio Barce Gallardo, cuyas novelas bien merece la pena conocer y estudiar.
El autor recorre en este libro los lugares comunes de la narrativa hispana y/o catalana-marroquí desde el mito de Al-Andalus y los espacios y experiencias de la época de la colonización y el Protectorado, hasta problemáticas actuales como el cruce del Estrecho en pateras, la situación jurídica de la mujer en el reino alauita y la identidad híbrida de muchos escritores a ambos lados de esa “calle de agua”, como la llamara Aziz Tazi.
Sin embargo, Ricci no sólo se conforma con presentarnos y analizar a los nombres y sus obras más importantes de este canon de la literatura marroquí fronteriza en castellano y catalán, sino que aquilata su estudio con acercamientos eclécticos pero efectivos provenientes de los estudios literarios hispánicos y marroquíes, de los estudios de frontera y migración y de la teoría poscolonial—no sólo aquélla producida en naciones de la Commonwealth inglesa o en el ámbito de la literatura de expresión francesa, sino especialmente aquellas teorizaciones procedentes de Latinoamérica y autóctonas del Maghreb, insistiendo así en un importantísimo y necesario diálogo entre las naciones del llamado “sur global”. Tal vez en este privilegiar las conversaciones sur-sur radique una de las mayores contribuciones de su autor, amén de la mencionada labor de divulgación de la obra de escritores y escritoras marroquíes que merecen una mayor atención, más allá de los oportunismos del mercado editorial. 
Se trata éste, por tanto, de un libro que resultará de gran ayuda a críticos de las literaturas contemporáneas peninsulares, marroquíes, postcoloniales africanas y del sur global, así como de aquéllos que quieran adentrarse en profundidad en el estudio de las relaciones hispano-marroquíes o aquéllos a los que les interese explorar las posibilidades enriquecedoras de las relaciones culturales e intelectuales sur-sur y los estudios de la migración. Por ende, el estudio de Ricci cumple con el propósito de su autor de demostrar cómo los escritores marroquíes de expresión castellana, al hacer suya la lengua de Cervantes, intentan “dar universalidad al discurso a través de una lengua que es hablada por más de 400 millones de personas y, de este modo, acercar a los lectores hispanohablantes a sus perspectivas y apoyar ‘su causa.’” 
Sólo queda darle las gracias a Cristián H. Ricci por la enorme labor de recopilación, diseminación y trabajo incansable que ha llevado a cabo para dar voz y publicar un valiosísimo corpus literario que está necesitado de mucha más atención académica y de lectores en general interesados por lo que sucede allende el Mediterráneo y/o en su propia tierra a través de la voz de los escritores inmigrantes provenientes de Marruecos, uno de los países-socios más importantes en materia comercial y cultural de España.

Este trabajo tiene por objetivo exponer las implicaciones que el nuevo paradigma complejo-holista o transmoderno tiene sobre la Administración, particularmente en los aspectos metodológicos. Se parte del argumento que el método, más que un instrumento por el cual se construye/obtiene conocimiento, es una institución histórica legitimadora de la verdad moderna, por lo que una crítica a sus supuestos epistemológicos implica un peligroso cuestionamiento al paradigma de la modernidad; las metodologías cualitativas implican esa ventana de posibilidades a través de la cual el investigador se convierte en agente transformador de la realidad social. En este trabajo nos limitamos a presentar una crítica hacia dos supuestos fundamentales del 􀁏􀃃􀁖􀁑􀁆􀁑􀀂􀁅􀁋􀁇􀁐􀁖􀃈􀅿􀁅􀁑􀀂􀁏􀁑􀁆􀁇􀁔􀁐􀁑􀀜􀀂􀁃􀀋􀀂􀁎􀁃􀀂􀁔􀁇􀁎􀁃􀁅􀁋􀃎􀁐􀀂􀁕􀁗􀁌􀁇􀁖􀁑􀀏􀁑􀁄􀁌􀁇􀁖􀁑􀀂􀁅􀁑􀁏􀁑􀀂􀁆􀁑􀁕􀀂􀁇􀁐􀁖􀁇􀁕􀀂􀁕􀁇􀁒􀁃􀁔􀁃􀁆􀁑􀁕􀀂􀁇􀁐􀁖􀁔􀁇􀀂􀁕􀃈􀀂􀁛􀀂􀁄􀀋􀀂􀁎􀁃􀀂􀁈􀁑􀁔􀁏􀁃􀀂􀁆􀁇􀀂􀁅􀁑􀁐􀁕􀁖􀁔􀁗􀁋􀁔􀀑􀁑􀁄􀁖􀁇􀁐􀁇􀁔􀀂􀁅􀁑􀁐􀁑􀁅􀁋􀁏􀁋􀁇􀁐􀁖􀁑􀀂􀁅􀁑􀁏􀁑􀀂􀁗􀁐􀀂􀁒􀁔􀁑􀁅􀁇􀁕􀁑􀀂􀃕􀁐􀁋􀁅􀁑􀀂􀁆􀁇􀁎􀁎􀁇􀁉􀁃􀁔􀀂􀁃􀀂􀁎􀁃􀀂􀁘􀁇􀁔􀁆􀁃􀁆􀀂􀁅􀁋􀁇􀁐􀁖􀃈􀅿􀁅􀁃􀀝􀀂􀁕􀁇􀀂􀁅􀁑􀁐􀁖􀁔􀁃􀁕􀁖􀁃􀁐􀀂􀁅􀁑􀁐􀀂􀁎􀁃􀁕􀀂􀁒􀁔􀁇􀁏􀁋􀁕􀁃􀁕􀀂􀁓􀁗􀁇􀀂􀁆􀁇􀁔􀁋􀁘􀁃􀁆􀁃􀁕􀀂􀁆􀁇􀀂􀁎􀁃􀀂􀁈􀃈􀁕􀁋􀁅􀁃cuántica hacen referencia a la incertidumbre, la complementariedad y la incidencia del investigador.

This article adopts a transmodern approach to Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness and it contends that Roy's fusion of anti-global activism, typical of her non-fiction writings, and literary imagination, reminiscent of Indian epic texts, can provide an interesting instance of a transmodern intellectual perspective. In particular, by examining gender troubles, ethnic conflicts and vulnerable ecology, my article argues that Roy's second novel refracts the decolonial/postcolonial debate by means of a hybrid narrative form. This interplay between creative writing and intellectual activism can be said to chime with transmodern ethics in that it promotes attentiveness to the perspective of the most marginalised.

Transmodernity and the heart: The unique position of the semazen-artist absTraCT This article looks at Sufi whirling as both a sacred act and a purifying process that sorts, sifts and reconfigures the ego. The article highlights the necessity of our spiritual and religious practices to a transmodern effort. By a renegotiation of ritual, practice and doctrine, ingenious solutions for both personhood and collective thriving may arise. The semazen-artist, an initiate who walks in the worlds of both spiritual submission and commercial arts production, emerges at a moment in time to hold the past, literally within their body and living practice, while consciously engaging the present towards a reimagined universal reality.

Recent feminist theory has employed the idea of the “body-in-place“ as an alternative to both essentialism and social constructionism – a body dependent on the affirmation of others on earth, while new materialists like Alaimo (2008) have put forward the idea of “transcorporeality,” or the reciprocal interdependence and co-becoming of the human body and the material environment, in which the body/mind dualism does not exist and the body itself is in transit between the unstable inner self and the non-othered environment. In tune with Baumann’s (2000) “liquid modernity” countering the “solid structures of the past” and promising less rigid or hierarchical relations and value systems, transcorporeality may be seen as a way to cope with complex issues, from personal traumas to historical, political and environmental problems, as explored in Moque Roffey’s novel Archipelago (2012), set in a post-2008 hurricane Caribbean region. Traversing the complex regional history of slavery, and renegotiating the issues of his personal self as relational and transitional, the main character Gavin eventually achieves the healing of his personal trauma and an awareness of the physical environment as rhizomatic and multidirectional, co-becoming with the self that is not rigidly defined but balancing between notions of man/human/more-than human/oceanic/mermaid, mythological and material. The chapter expands on the ideas of transcorporeality and Transmodernity, proposing such further notions as “transanimality” and “transfluidity” to explore the borders of self, the body and the environment within the transmodern paradigm.

Keywords: Jay Koh, Socially Engaged, Art–Led Participative Processes (ALPP), Malaysia, Bersih
BukuJalanan, LiteraCity, functional-harmony, intersubjectivity, reciprocity.

Abstract
This essay examines the organisation and workings of current art and cultural collectives in Malaysia, with resonance for Southeast Asia, through the lens of socially engaged public participatory art. This essay proposes an inclusive aesthetics that looks at the complementary effects of dialogue, reciprocity, transitional meaning and durational process. It employs the framework of ALPP, a concept–based, a trans-disciplinary critical framework that I have constructed to raise discussion. The works of a social collective Buku Jalanan and Zikri Rahman are mapped out within the contexts of Kuala Lumpur, where inherited postcolonial structures prescribe the usage of public spaces. Acts of expression and interaction in BJ’s activities reveal a particular form of ‘distant subjectivity’ called ‘functional harmony’ that is prevalent and informs contemporary cultural values in Southeast Asia. These experiences, without being representational of other collectives, are used to launch discursive points on open–structured, socially engaged, public participative and democratic activities.
PM me for this text at ifima7 (at)gmail.com

In this article, I will use the two truths doctrine from Buddhism to explicate transformative social change as a transmodern moral framework for critical psychological research. The two truths doctrine, a teaching from the Madhyamaka, or Middle Way, school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by Nāgārjuna, nondualistically collapses the ontology of transformation (absolute truth) and the epistemology of social change (relative truth) in the name of soteriology. At their core, dualistic problems and reductionist solutions are based upon the reification of concepts, which can result in devastating effects, such as the objectification (and oppression) of research participants—not mentioning moral relativism. This article attempts to offer a transmodern moral framework for qualitative and theoretical researchers in critical psychology outside the confines of the modern–postmodern debate.

Das Erzählwerk der Schriftstellerin Felicitas Hoppe ist bestimmt durch die Spannung zwischen literarischem Traditionsbezug und werkgenetischem Autonomieanspruch. Von den Prosaminiaturen »Picknick der Friseure« (1996) bis hin zur Autofiktion »Hoppe« (2012) kennzeichnen dabei Transgression, Dekontextualisierung sowie semantische Pluralisierung das inter-und autointertextuelle Rezeptionsverhalten – ein poetologisches Prinzip, das Hoppes Schreiben in der transmodernen Ästhetik verortet und von der Autorin selbst als »ehrliche Erfindung« bezeichnet wird. Die daraus entstehende eigengesetzliche Prosa, ihre komplexen Referenz-und Assoziationsräume sowie ihre erzähltechnische Vermittlung analysiert der Band u. a. aus narratologischer, gattungstheoretischer und diskursanalytischer Perspektive.

Mit einem Geleitwort von Felicitas Hoppe und Beiträgen von Sonja Arnold, Julia Boog, Uwe Dörwald, Svenja Frank, Lena Ekelund, Kathrin Emeis, Franz Fromholzer, Maria Hinzmann, Julia Ilgner, Michaela Holdenried, Sandra Langer, Florian Lippert, Ritchie Robertson, Erik Schilling, Nadine Schneiderwind, Ernest Schonfield, Veronika Schuchter, David Wachter, Dirk Weissmann und Antonius Weixler.

International perspectives on the narrative art of Felicitas Hoppe, between connections to tradition and transmodern poetics – with a preface by Felicitas Hoppe.

This article explores the usefulness of Latin American philosopher Enrique Dussel's work for film-philosophy, as the field increasingly engages with a world of cinemas. The piece concludes with an analysis of two films with an ecological focus, Trolljegeren/Troll Hunter (2010) and The Hunter (2011). They are indicative of a much broader emerging trend in ecocinema that explores the interaction between humanity and the environment in relation to world history, and which does so by staging encounters between people and those ‘nonhuman’ aspects of the Earth excluded by coloniality/modernity (e.g. animals, animal-spirits, mythological creatures, shaman, the very Earth itself). The interdisciplinary concerns of this work place it at the intersection of the latest research into a world of cinemas (in particular the various moves to understand films beyond the national paradigm now increasingly labelled the ‘transnational turn’; alongside growing concerns with how cinema helps us engage with ecology); and the need to broaden our philosophical grasp of the world. This latter point requires engagement with thinkers from beyond the Eurocentric canon of Western thought that currently dominates philosophy, and equally shapes film-philosophy. Dussel's philosophy is shown to provide a perspective capable of illuminating the intertwined nature of human and planetary history evident in these films, in a manner that is extremely pertinent to our global situation. Thus it is shown to be more useful than approaches to similar groupings of films which draw on, for example, speculative realism, when it comes to providing a cine-ethics appropriate to the Anthropocene.

Los artículos reunidos en este dossier son fruto de una de las secciones del taller/simposio “La producción, traducción y apropiación transregional de saberes: actores, instituciones y discursos”, organizado por el Instituto Ibero-Americano de Berlín (IAI, por sus siglas en alemán), y llevado a cabo los días 10 y 11 de octubre de 2014. El taller/simposio formó parte de las actividades desarrolladas por el IAI en el marco de su foco temático de investigación “Producción de saberes y transferencias culturales: América Latina en contexto transregional”. Uno de los objetivos principales de dicho evento ha sido iniciar un diálogo interdisciplinario sobre algunos conceptos de la crítica cultural en y sobre América Latina, lo que se refleja en el hecho de que los textos que publicamos en el presente dossier provengan de la Historia, la Antropología Social, la Literatura y los Estudios Culturales. Ha sido nuestro objetivo el mantener el ámbito de debate abierto de la sección; por eso decidimos publicar no solamente las ponencias que la componen, sino también los comentarios a cada una de ellas que realizó Vittoria Borsò.

After the end of British colonization and three internal wars, the Republic of the Sudan’s modern leadership must redefine the new nation’s legal identity. While having a long history of weak laws under British rule, the majority Muslim nation’s leadership has replaced the old legal system with sharīʿah law. There is a fear in the international community, which has witnessed the nation’s ethnic strife (particularly the persecution of minorities), that: (a) Islamization and Arabization are movements which disenfranchise non-Muslim citizens and (b) present day Sudanese sharīʿah is excessively cruel. This paper chronicles how substantive law is the ultimate tool for framing society (and therefore people). It also concludes, thus, that substantive law has the ultimate liberating and suppressive power. Using a phenomenological approach to ethics, this paper gives an explanation for the development of human rights and prospects for the growth of human rights in Sudan. Also, this paper uses critical theory to investigate the potential social implications of postcolonial Sudanese constitutional law, including a prospective Qurʾanic rights dialectic for Sudan to reclaim its authenticity.​

My essay investigates the influences of the transmodern paradigm on Tom McCarthy’s latest novel, Satin Island (2015), which features U., a corporate anthropologist working on the questions of contemporaneity. In particular, I examine how the tangled web of data proliferation and the saturation of ideas affect U.’s ontological status, revealing a crisis of agency in the age of the Anthropocene. Then, by drawing on the theoretical framework of the novel of ideas, I analyse how the novel engages with the metafictional paradox of “finding shape,” showing that U.’s anthropological inquiries inhabit a buffer-zone, a temporal frame that interweaves stasis and acceleration, past and future. I finally argue that McCarthy’s linguistic and formal solutions situate Satin Island at the crossroads of transmodernity: while stretching the fictional representation to the limit, the narrative succumbs neither to detailed observation nor centrifugal alienation. By invoking a problematic relation between human and post-human, through a transmodern critique of our present age, the novel thus hints at a vision of humankind that resists the aesthetics of an evacuated subjectivity.

The present paper is a theoretical work which has as its main aim the presentation of a decolonial reading of the phenomenon of internal displacement. Departing from the decolonial theories developed from the second half of the twentieth century by Aníbal Quijano, Walter Mignolo, Enrique Dussel and José Manuel Barreto, I will present a different approach to internal displacement as a phenomenon and to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) as a category of concern in the international arena. The introduction of the dark side of Modernity: coloniality, will serve as the background for

El videojuego es uno de los nuevos objetos culturales más representativos del siglo XXI, que se convierte en referente de la evolución incesante que sufren los dispositivos enunciativos. Un ejemplo de ello lo constituye Castlevania: Lord of Shadows (2013), un videojuego desarrollado por el estudio español Mercury Stream y dirigido por Enric Álvarez, en el que el usuario descubre que la rígida estructura narrativa del videojuego da paso a una lectura-interacción en la que el jugador se enfrenta al reto de interactuar y explorar el espacio videolúdico, convirtiéndose en investigador y coautor. Este fenómeno forma parte del mundo globalizado en el que la hibridación tecnológica propuesta por los videojuegos es síntoma de los tiempos de la moderna sociedad de la información.

This is a book entitled "Philosophy of Liberation" by an Argentine philosopher, Enrique Dussel, in which the author calls all the philosophers of the Global South (including The Third World philosophers) for liberating their regional philosophies from the Global North philosophical domination that justifies global neo-colonial practices all over the world.

Las grandes metrópolis europeas están inmersas en procesos de transculturación cultural y social sin precedentes. En este contexto, proponemos invertir la tradicional mirada eurocéntrica como estrategia epistemológica y estudiar las nuevas realidades sociales y culturales europeas desde América Latina. Destacamos el interés del enfoque trans para entender la compleja realidad antropológica de un mundo globalizado. Nuestras reflexiones se centran en tres conceptos: transculturación, transmodernidad y traducción. En cuanto a esta última, proponemos repensar las teorías eurocéntricas, privilegiando el paradigma perspectivista, que permite deconstruir la dicotomía jerarquizada original/copia que define como sincretismos (impuros, inferiores) los productos de los procesos de transculturación. A modo de ejemplo nos referiremos en nuestro análisis a la ciudad de Bruselas, sede de la Unión Europea y capital del Estado belga.

This paper discusses Enrique Dussel's notion of rationality within his "analectic" method and his project of "transmodernity," particularly in regards to what rationality might entail for South-to-South dialogue. While Dussel argues against modern European universalized rationality, which arose from and served to justify colonization, he also argues against postmodern critiques of modernity because they are Eurocentric at core. This means that both modern and postmodern philosophies fail to take into consideration how geography is constitutive of modernity. Dussel thus situates his project of "transmodernity" beyond the poles of modernity and postmodernity by shifting the locus of reason from the European center to the side of the victims of the modern project. Yet, Dussel's philosophical enterprise maintains the main value of modern rationality, namely, a claim to universality. This claim to universality has been historically problematic because, as Dussel himself argues, it justified colonization. I argue that Dussel's project of transmodernity requires a pluriversal rather than a universal notion of rationality that can accommodate both diversity and allow for dialogue. I further argue that in his most recent work, Dussel has become aware of the issues that a universal claim to rationality entails and has thus leaned towards a notion of pluriversal rationality by taking into account particular histories while allowing for meaningful dialogue. The aim of this paper is to consider what pluriversality entails for transmodernity and how it accommodates diversity while allowing for meaningful and respectful South-to-South dialogue.

This paper focuses on the science fiction (SF) novel Cosmonaut Keep (2000)—first in the trilogy Engines of Light, which also includes Dark Light (2001) and Engines of Light (2002)—by the Scottish writer Ken MacLeod, and analyzes from a transmodern perspective some future warfare aspects related to forthcoming technological development, possible reconfigurations of territoriality in an expanding cluster of civilizations travelling and trading across distant solar systems, expanded cultural awareness, and space ecoconsciousness. It is my argument that MacLeod's novel brings Transmodernism, which is characterized by a " planetary vision " in which human beings sense that we are interdependent, vulnerable, and responsible, into the future. Hereby, MacLeod's work expands the original conceptualization of the term "Transmodernism" as defined by Rodríguez Magda, and explores possible future outcomes, showing a unique awareness of the fact that technological processes are always linked to political and power-related uses.

Abstrakt: Artykuł stanowi próbę osadzenia najważniejszych prac Petera Linebaugha na tle współczesnych teorii tego, co wspólne (the common), w szczególności w zestawieniu z biopolitycznym paradygmatem Antonia Negriego i Michaela Hardta. Dorobek amerykańskiego historyka na gruncie polskim pozostaje mało znany, mimo że jego prace z zakresu historii społecznej, dziejów ruchu robotniczego, kolonialnego Atlantyku czy globalnych grodzeń (enclosures) mogą być inspirujące nie tylko dla historyków, ale i dla teorii społecznej. Linebaugh przyglądając się zaniedbywanym przez historyków losom grup zdominowanych w okresie formowania się kapitalizmu, wyprowadza nowe ujęcia pojęć takich jak klasa robotnicza, walka klasowa, commoning czy dobra wspólne (the commons) oraz kreśli ambitną, transnowoczesną genezę globalnego kapitalizmu. Artykuł wskazuje na użyteczność jego perspektywy badawczej w dobie kapitalizmu biopolitycznego.

Author(s): Ndhlovu, Finex J.; Kelly, Stephen John | Abstract: Scholars speaking from Southern perspectives have long argued in favor of recognizing diverse ways of knowing and against the hegemony of Euro-modernist epistemologies that have crystallized into orthodoxy within the academy. Euro-modernist epistemologies proceed from positivist “scientific” principles that turn a blind eye to the diversity of ways of reading and interpreting social experience. They reflect and represent subjective perceptions about what constitutes valid and legitimate knowledge. In this paper, we address the question: How do we prepare higher degree research students for the opportunities that flow and strategic challenges that arise from a diverse global network of knowledge societies? We suggest “ecology of knowledges paradigm” and “multilingual habitus” as the linchpin of higher degree research student training. This approach brings together diverse linguistic and cultural traditions to mediate pathw...

Transmodern ethics establishes moral norms on liberal, pluralist and pragmatic principles. We see a comeback of the negation morals, however not of ontology-anchored morals, as is the case of the God who picks favourites or of the jealous God paradigm, and not even of morals anchored in a contractualist perspective, as is the case in the modern period. The preferred focus is on the value of positivism, of cooperation as a source of efficiency, of personal enrichment, be it cultural, spiritual, or moral, derived from the access to alterity. Tolerance as an ethical value is legitimised by a new, utilitarian humanism. The ethical construction of identity revolves around the value of loyalty to a tradition, a dogma, a mentality, and by extension to any coherent system liable to generate a sense of belonging. Postindustrial ethics uses for instance the value of loyalty as a strategy in marketing, organisational development, political propaganda etc. The policies used in order to increase the loyalty of a shop's customers, the employee's loyalty for the company she works for, the supporter's loyalty to his team, are the translation in layman terms of the loyalty ethics that in spiritual terms was one of the foundations of orthodoxy as loyalty to the tradition of the holy fathers. The values of equality, liberty and fraternity have been more than that, as they have laid the foundations of the modern society.

Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West (2017) may be described as a postmillennial novel concerned with refugee crisis, asylum policy and identity construction. Hamid’s latest novel centres on a young couple leaving their homeland at risk from war and mass displacements: by means of teleportative magical doors, Nadia and Saeed cross spatio-temporal borders, first moving to Mikonos, then to London and finally to California, while migrant crossings and socio-political upheavals materialise around them. The protagonists’ plotline is intercut with brief parallel narratives on other people’s stories around the world, from Palo Alto to Sydney. These vignettes share the same thematic concern with migration policy and social alienation as in its main narrative strand. To this end, the British-Pakistani author resorts to a narrative technique that evokes a sense of instantaneity, reminding us of the simultaneity of time and the interconnectedness among individuals across the planet, where temporal and spatial barriers are porous and permeable. As suggested in these lines, Exit West addresses the instability and complexity of our globalised world, offering a multiplicity of perspectives from different places, social classes and nationalities. In certain respects, this ubiquitous way of envisioning reality seems to be in tune with the main tenets of the transmodern paradigm as theorised by Rosa María Rodríguez Magda, among others. Against this background, my presentation will look at Exit West as a transmodern narrative “of(f) the limit”. On the one hand, the novel seeks to transgress the limits of Eurocentricism, giving voice to the world’s excluded and infusing society with individual singularities caught in a web of interdependence. On the other, by conflating social critique, the use of technology and magic realism, Exit West qualifies as a global transmodern novel as it slides between a realistic depiction and a fantasy tale.

This volume aims at exploring the forms of expression and representation with which contemporary literatures in English are currently responding to the emergence of a new cultural paradigm. Its starting hypothesis is that, although still largely unnoticed, there is evidence of a paradigm shift taking place since the 1980s that involves the assimilation and transcendence of Modernity and Postmodernity into what, following Rosa María Rodríguez Magda (1989, 2004, 2011, 2017, 2019) and other sociologists and philosophers of history—such as Enrique Dussel (1999, 2001, 2002, 2005), Marc Luyckx Ghisi (1999, 2008), Etienne Le Roy (2011), Nicanor Perlas (2011), or Ziauddin Sardar (2004, 2013)—have called ‘Transmodernity’. According to Rodríguez Magda,

[a]ll these coincidences in the use of a term, beyond the diversity of meanings, show the same grasp of the contradictions of modernity and the search for a new model that will explain the changes that operate in our present.(Rodríguez Magda 2017, n.p.)

As the prefix ‘trans-’ suggests, Transmodernity would be characterized by a critique of the two earlier periods entailing a change in human perception and thus in the understanding and representation of reality. Moreover, Transmodernism would be conceptualized as transnational phenomenon based “on the primacy of the transmissibility of information in real time, impregnated in transculturality, in which creation refers to transtextuality and in which artistic innovation is thought as transavantgarde” (Rodríguez Magda 2017, n.p.). As she further states, the “new economy”, which is based on financial globalization and new communication technologies, would have been key to set up what she defines as “a new stadium, … a new paradigm” (2017, n.p.).

Space and time in human experience are merely ordering systems upon which all of the social activities and objects in the world can be perceived as real, where continu- ity and discontinuity appear as dualism. Animating and leading meaningful change while simultaneously maintaining the resilience of continuity can be accomplished by reframing the perception of reality: space and time. Contemporary societies can persevere through the metamorphoses of reality by navigating through diaphanous space and polychronic time. To engage in this navigation is to be willing to experi- ence the transparency and integration of the chrysalis process. Our capacity to nav- igate through diaphanous space and polychronic time liberates us from the limita- tions of the present, dogmatic ideologies, and uncertainties of exploring unfamiliar boundaries.