Wynter and Decolonization

Sylvia Wynter: An Introduction

Sylvia Wynter is an Afro-Caribbean theorist, born in Cuba in 1928 and raised in Kingston, Jamaica. Growing up in Jamaica, she witnessed anticolonial mass movements during the early 1940s. In 1947, Wynter moved to London, England, to study modern languages at the University of London, King’s College, majoring in Spanish with a minor in English. She taught at the University of West Indies in Jamaica before moving to the USA and teaching at the University of California, San Diego, and then Stanford University, where she is currently Professor Emerita. While at the University of West Indies, Wynter taught in the Hispanic Literature Department, and then, in San Diego, she taught primarily in the Department of Literature. She also served as the Chair of the African and Afro-American Studies Department as well as Professor of Spanish in the Spanish and Portuguese Department at Stanford University (Wynter 2000). Prior to her employment at the University of West...