Zero-Point Hubris

Reviews / Votes

With its focus on bio-politics and the creation of an imperial science, Zero-Point Hubris takes decolonial theory to the next level. By focusing on the practices of coloniality in Latin America, Castro-Gomez troubles the rigidity of the binary between center and periphery. He shows how Criollo elites in Latin America fashioned a distinctive form of whiteness, naturalizing inequality and their own privilege. This is a critically important work. -- Linda Martin Alcoff, professor of philosophy, City University of New York Santiago Castro-Gomez is undoubtedly one of the most original Latin American philosophers of the last two decades. Through a series of brilliant books, some of which are finally appearing in English, he has carved a distinct path between the historicizing history of ideas (which gave us Latinamericanism) and an ontologizing decolonial theorizing (which gave us the coloniality of power). Provincializing and localizing the genealogical method Castro-Gomez has forged a powerful analytical method that focuses on epistemic, governmentality, and racializing practices and regimes that renders legible the dialectics between coloniality and modernity. After Zero-Point Hubris we can talk about decolonizing genealogies and we will have to read both Immanuel Kant and Michel Foucault differently. -- Eduardo Mendieta, Pennsylvania State University