Decolonizing Internationalism: Pan-African, Pan-Islamic and Anti-imperial Feminist Traditions

Catalog description

What does globalization from below look like? This class explores different visions of radical internationalism that have emerged in the course of the last two centuries, often as insurgent “freedom dreams” from countries in the global south fighting racial capitalism and imperialism in old and new forms. The historical challenge of decolonizing Euro-American empires emerges not only as a story about removing colonizers and transforming anti-colonial nationalism into statehood, but also as a story about alternative visions and practices of world-making. Different collectivities, knit together by subnational and transnational commitments, reinvented the world even as they navigate their way through it. This course explores Pan-Africanism, Pan-Islamic visions and Anti-imperial Feminisms as traditions that challenge liberal internationalism and speak to a constellation of different ways of being in and of the world. We explore works that read the world differently, forge alternative solidarities and challenge received maps of global governance. The class is likely to involve a book and film each week: The book authors include Cemil Aiden, Verónica Gago, Adom Getachew, Robin Kelley, Darryl Li and Françoise Vergès and the film directors include Ryan Coogler, Marije Meerman, Raul Peck, Udayan Prasad and Abderrahmane Sissako.