Colonial Unknowing (TPS-0233)

Fall 2026 · TPS 0233 · Tufts University · 3 credits · Undergraduate

This graduate level course is designed to consider the making and unmaking of colonial epistemologies, an active process scholars have referred to as colonial unknowing. Western discourse is underpinned by universalist assumptions on subject-object divides, particularly on fundamental topics like temporality, space, humanism, and nature. Focusing on an undisciplined approach to thinking and learning, we will consider knowledge relationally across decolonial, anti-imperialist and anti-colonial intellectual movements. We will analyze texts and artworks that capture the global and intersecting histories of racialization and colonization, and the active efforts to reject colonization’s overwhelming matrix of power. Our study of artistic interventions will allow us to accrue strategies and methods of challenging colonial extraction, including methods of refusal, illegibility and opacity. Key scholars include Sylvia Wynter, Anibal Quijano, Frantz Fanon, Tiffany King, Maria Lugones, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. Graduate level course open to advaned undergraduates with instructor permission. Open to graduate students through SMFA and Tufts (specifically Art History, English, and History).

Course codes: TPS-0233, TPS 0233, TPS0233, TPS-233, TPS 233, TPS233

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