Marxism since Marx: Race, Gender, Class

Catalog description

In the 1970s, the Combahee River Collective issued a statement noting that “the major systems of oppression are interlocking” and that “these oppressions create the conditions of our lives.” So, how is it that global capitalism and its modes of production, accumulation, and oppression have come to dominate our lives and what can we do about it? This course considers the contemporary significance of Marxism as well as the tremendous work produced since Marx with a focus on the intersections of race, gender, class, and geopolitics. We analyze how the historical and theoretical framework of Marxism becomes situated in particular material and ideological realities, such as decolonization movements, civil rights struggles, and those for worker protections. Our readings primarily focus on black Marxism and black feminist/feminist Marxisms with themes including: the role of racial and gendered differentiation in capitalist development and underdevelopment, processes of accumulation and dispossession, credit and debt, social reproduction, and relations between capital and labor. Readings may include works by: Karl Marx, Cedric Robinson, Walter Rodney, the Combahee River Collective, Claudia Jones, Silvia Federici, Nancy Fraser, Amílcar Cabral, Frantz Fanon, and Che Guevara, among others.