Amílcar Aldama Cruz

Latin America is a diverse mosaic of cultures that trace their origins back to Indigenous, African, Spanish, Portuguese and Islamic sources. Its philosophies, eloquently expressed by a long line of thinkers, are found not just in departments of philosophy, but also in its rich literature and art, which are given treatment in this volume. The Islamicate world is a unique, fourteen-century-old cultural mosaic that covers much of the known world. Despite its long civilizational experience, it too faces the challenge of emancipation from foreign domination and the chaotic cacophony of monologues afflicting our time. The papers collected here cover various aspects of the philosophies of these two constantly interacting traditions and how they impinge on an old problematic: “ghayriyya” (otherness) and “alienation”. Their themes include key figures like Ibn ʿArabī, Suhrawardī, Aḥmad b. Muṣṭafa al-ʿAlawī, Rudolfo Kusch, José Martí, Spain’s Moriscos, and contemporary Argentine philosophers; and expanding areas of research like the philosophy of the Nahua (popularly known as the “Aztec”) and the language reforms in Türkiye, both of which provide excellent examples of cultural self-alienation.