This year the Third World in Theory study group resumes its engagement with theoretical orientations towards the Third World within academia. The theme for the Study Group in 2019-20 is ‘Decolonising – Then and Now’. Decolonising the academia and academic curriculum has gained popularity in the UK and elsewhere in recent times with many universities setting up teaching and learning initiatives to decolonise their curriculum. Decolonising academia presupposes engagement with theories and histories that inform critique of colonialism and imperialism. In the academic year 2019-20 the Third World in Theory study group will revisit and analyse key classical texts by leading thinkers who have influenced national liberation struggles and map the transformations of ideas in more recent scholarship on colonialism.

Mariátegui’s Seven Essays on the Interpretation of the Peruvian Reality is a conjectural analysis of the post-colonial societies from a Materialist perspective. On the 6th of February 2020, Carlos Mosquera and João Carvalho will lead this amazing discussion about Mariátegui’s contribution to the non-European Marxist thought.

Carlos Cruz Mosquera is an activist, member of the editorial board of the Journal of Labour and Society, has recently published a biographical entry for José Carlos Mariátegui in the 2nd edition of the Encyclopaedia of Imperialism and Anti-imperialism, and has recently completed an MRes in Latin American Studies at the Institute of Latin American Studies.

Recommended reading: Mariátegui, José Carlos (1988). “Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality.” University of Texas Press.

The Third World in Theory study group is open to all.

You can join TWT Reading Group accessing the LDC website: https://lawdevelopmentconflict.com/reading-group/