With these words Professor Laura Perez (Department of Ethnic Studies) introduced Enrique Dussel's lecture at UC Berkeley on Friday, April 5th. One of the earliest theologians to think along liberationist lines and founder of liberation philosophy, Dussel lectured on the subject "Modernity, Coloniality, and Capitalism in the World-System," to a packed hall. Visiting from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City, Dussel delivered his lecture as part of a conference titled Coloniality of Power: Transmodernity and the Geopolitics of Knowledge in the Modern/Colonial Capitalist World-System that was co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies, the Townsend Center for the Humanities, the Department of Ethnic Studies, The Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and the Graduate Theological Union.

In a masterful though sometimes dizzying weaving together of disciplines, Dussel argued against the main thrust of world-systems theory, positing that the centrality of Europe in the global economic and political system can only be traced back to the industrial revolution and not to the "discovery" of America in 1492. In Dussel's analysis, China and India were the geo-political centers of the world market during this period of European expansion, while Europe was not in a position to produce goods for Asian markets until at least two centuries after the conquest of the Americas. Thus, countering what he perceives as a eurocentric bias within world-systems analysis, Dussel asserted that Europe actually remained peripheral in the global economy until later than many theorists have believed. "In a mere two hundred years," he insisted, "it is not possible to destroy the value of a millennial civilization-the deep levels of valorization, the imaginaire of ancient cultures, remains intact."

In the second half of his lecture, Dussel shifted his discussion from an historical analysis to a theoretical one. Here his discussion centered on the notion of "transmodernity" as a utopic vision of multiculturality that could replace post-modernity.

Coloniality, Dussel explained, is the occupation, domination, inclusion and eventual negation of part of a cultural within a universal claim. But, he reminds us, there is the rest of the culture that remains excluded from the colonial process. "There are two limitations to postmodernism," Dussel argued, "First, it represents a eurocentric critique of the included negation, and second, it cannot accomplish the affirmation of those aspects of a culture excluded by European modernity. Post-modernity is critical, but not enough."

Transmodernity accomplishes what post-modernity cannot-- it offers an affirmation of the excluded exteriority of a colonial civilization. Making a surprising theological move at the conclusion of his lecture, Dussel suggested that the future multicultural utopia that emerges in transmodernity would represent creation from nothing, ex nihilo. This utopia would be rebuilt from the excluded aspects of colonial cultures, or those parts of the culture previously denied value.

Dussel fielded questions regarding the role of gender analysis in his philosophy, the meaning of exteriority, and the problem of fundamentalism. He clarified that the problem of patriarchy has been a concern in his work since 1972, nuanced the distinction between included and excluded aspects of colonial cultures, and distanced his vision of utopia from fundamentalism's negation of modernity.

While he was in Berkeley, Dussel also spoke at a bag luncheon at the Graduate Theological Union. In this lecture he advocated for a second stage of liberation theology, insisting that liberation theology will be reinvigorated by critical engagement with contemporary discourses in postmodernism and subaltern studies. He also argued for the continued relevance of Marx for liberation theology in the face of his perception that many of his contemporaries have sought to distance themselves from Marxist analysis in the last two decades. As part of this claim, Dussel offered a brilliant "liturgical" reading of the theological language in Marx's works. Dussel also participated in a closed seminar with other conference participants, Aníbal Quijano and Walter Mignolo, on the subject of utopias.