Progreso Weekly columnist is honored in Venezuelan literary contest
By Rosa C. Báez
From La Polilla Cubana
The Cuban book awarded an honorary mention in the fifth edition of the Premio Libertador al Pensamiento Crítico (the Liberator’s Award for Critical Thought) was 21st-Century Imperialism: The Cultural Wars, by Elíades Acosta Matos.
In the contest’s first edition (2005), entered by 136 works from 16 countries, the winner was The Subject and the Law: The Return of the Repressed Subject, by German-Costa Rican philosopher Franz Hinkelammert. Cuba received honorary mention for Luis Suárez Salazar’s Mother America: One Century of Violence and Pain.
“With this award, the Bolivarian Government of Venezuela seeks to acknowledge the authors who devote their theoretical efforts to the clarification and denunciation of the situations faced by men and women, peoples and cultures, groups and individuals, demanding respect for their essential freedom and integrity and the right to an honorable life and the exercise of the fundamental rights of every human being.”
Enrique Dussel receives 2009 Liberator’s Award for Critical Thought
The winner of the 2009 Liberator’s Award for Critical Thought is the Argentine writer Enrique Dussel, now living in Mexico, for his work Politics of Liberation, Vol. II, Architectonic.
The Culture Ministry of the People’s Power, through the Network of Intellectuals and Artists in Defense of Humanity, announced the winner of the 2009 Liberator’s Award for Critical Thought, which, in its fifth edition, ruled in favor of the Argentine author Enrique Dussel, now living in Mexico, for his work Politics of Liberation, Vol. II, Architectonic.
The winning work was announced in a press conference on Saturday 10 July at the Institute of the Arts of Image and Space by the Culture Minister of the People’s Power, Farruco Sesto; the Vice Minister of Culture for Human Development, Carmen Bohórquez, and jury members Aurelio Alonso Tejada (Cuba), Santiago Alba Rico (Spain), Héctor Díaz Polanco (Mexico), Iraida Vargas Arenas and Carlos Noguera (Venezuela).
The verdict says that “this is a work that broaches the ontological and normative moment, focused from the perspective of the South’s problems and, in particular, Latin America. The author attempts to construct a general criticism of the categorial system of modern philosophies, that is, a criticism of the political philosophy of liberation through the central notion of power […] while giving the readers valuable tools to think politics from a perspective of liberation and emancipation.”
Honorary mentions were given to the works Critical Juridical Sociology: For a New Common Sense in the Law, by Boaventura de Sousa Santos; 21st-Century Imperialism: The Cultural Wars, by Elíades Acosta Matos; Disinformation: How the Media Conceal the World, by Pascual Serrano; Agroenergy: A Solution to the Climate or the End of the Crisis for Capital? by Francois Houtart, and Venezuela: Where is the Productive Model Headed? by Victor Alvarez.
With the Liberator’s Award for Critical Thought, one of the most important prizes in social sciences, the Bolivarian Government recognizes and supports the theoretical efforts by the world’s intellectuals to demand respect and freedom for the peoples.
