Profile picture of Miguel Gualdrón Ramírez

Miguel Gualdrón Ramírez

Assistant Professor
Philosophy
Office: 232 Susan Campbell Hall
Office Hours: Fall 2023: Mondays and Wednesdays from 11am-12pm
Research Interests: Critical Philosophy of Race, Latin American and Caribbean Philosophy (Social and Political), Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art, 18th and 19th century German Philosophy (esp. Hegel and Nietzsche), 20th century Continental Philosophy

Biography

I studied philosophy as an undergraduate and MA student at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and I hold a PhD in Philosophy from DePaul University, Chicago (2019). Before joining UO, I was Assistant Professor in the Philosophy and Religion Department at the University of North Texas (2021-2023), and Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Oxford College of Emory (2018-2020). My research and teaching approximate the intersection between Latin American/Africana decolonial philosophy that occurs in the Americas, and how this entanglement contributes to understanding gender-race constructions under coloniality as well as the relations between colonized communities across the continent. The main sources for these investigations are political and aesthetic theories and practices that critique colonial forms of self-understanding and expression and contribute to new epistemologies of resistance. I am currently working on two book projects, Decolonial Aesthetics: Theory and Praxis from the Americas, and Fundamentals of Anti-Blackness in Latin American Thought. The former makes the case for the urgency of reconfiguring varied traditions of decolonial and anticolonial thought and praxis from an aesthetic standpoint, while the latter analyzes crucial moments in the philosophical canon that construct a Latin American identity on top of a removal of Black identities, cultures, and bodies, with an emphasis on forms of resistance to these constructs. 

Research Interests

Critical Philosophy of Race, Latin American and Caribbean Philosophy (Social and Political), Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art, 18th and 19th century German Philosophy (esp. Hegel and Nietzsche), 20th century Continental Philosophy

Publications

  • “The promise of Manumission. Appropriations and Responses to the Notion of Emancipation in the Caribbean and South America in the First Half of the 19th Century,” Creolizing Critical Theory: New Voices in Caribbean Philosophy, Rowman & Littlefield, 2024. (Link)
  • “Two Versions of the Mestizo Model: Toward a theory of Antiblackness in Latin American Thought”, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 17: Issue 3, 2023. (Link)
  • “The Dialectics of Critique and Hope. Reflections on Colombia’s New Government,” coauthored with Nathalia Hernández Vidal in Human Geography, Vol 15: No. 3, 2023. (Link)
  • “Aesthetic resistance from the Andes and Beyond: Possibilities and limits of anticolonial sensing.” Accepted, Research and Phenomenology, Vol. 53: Issue 1, 2023. (Link)
  • “¿Por qué es tan bello el mundo? La estética decolonial como presentimiento e insuficiencia de la totalidad” in Ideas y Valores, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Vol. 71. Supl. 9, 2022. (Link)
  • “To ’stay where you are’ as a decolonial gesture: Glissant’s philosophy of Caribbean history in the context of Césaire and Fanon.” In Jack Daniel Webb, Rod Westmaas, Maria del Pilar Kaladeen, and William Tantam, Memory, Migration and (De)colonisation in the Caribbean and Beyond. Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, 2020. (Link)
  • “Introduction: Philosophy in and from Colombia,” (with María del Rosario Acosta López) in Philosophical Readings XI.3, 2019. Special issue “Philosophy in Colombia.”
  • “Transversality as disruption and connection: On the possibilities and limits of using the framework of trauma in Glissant’s philosophy of Caribbean history,” in Philosophical Readings XI.3, 2019. Special issue “Philosophy in Colombia.” (Link)
  • “Resistance and expanse in Nuestra América: a contemporary analysis of José Martí in light of Édouard Glissant and Gloria Anzaldúa” in diacritics Vol. 46. No. 2, 2018. (Link)
  • “Pensar con las manos. Otra mirada a las relaciones entre arte y memoria en la obra de Óscar Muñoz,” in Resistencias al olvido. Memoria y arte en Colombia. Ediciones Uniandes, Bogotá, 2016., pp. 49-78. (Link)
  • “Antígona: ¿lugar imposible de una comunidad?” in Universitas Philosophica, July (29) 59, Bogotá, 2012, pp. 81-98. (Link)
  • “El Mutuo Reconocimiento como concepto del Espíritu. Apuntes sobre el concepto de Anerkennung en la Fenomenología del Espíritu, in Acosta, María del Rosario (Ed.), Reconocimiento y diferencia. Idealismo alemán y hermenéutica: un retorno a las fuentes clásicas del debate contemporáneo. Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, 2010.
  • “¿Juzgar o actuar?,” Al Margen Magazine, Número 21-22, Hanna Arendt, pensadora en tiempos de oscuridad, March and June, 2007, Siglo del Hombre Editores, Bogotá