Akty otwarcia. Wynalezienie Ameryki
Opening Acts. The Invention of America

Summary/Abstract: The essay opening the issue presents the contexture of modernity and coloniality, fundamental for decolonial thought, and associated concepts – “1492” (conceived as the beginning of “our history”), “invention” (and not “discovery”), and epistemic disobedience. The “invention of America” – similarly to successive philosophical, existential, political, and artistic gestures repeating it and performed in Latin America – could be understood as “opening acts” (Actos de apertura). From this vantage point the mythical founding act of America does not belong to history but is continually actualized anew by opening towards a perspective of utopia. In this sense, consecutive Latin American “opening acts” symbolically “establish America” upon each occasion: they comprise a transformation (albeit in an opposite direction) of the voyage of Christopher Columbus. It is also in this meaning, i.e. as epistemic courage, that the “learning from Latin America” formula – which could be the motto of the presented issue – can be comprehended.

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