Racial Capitalism in the Flesh

This course focuses on the theories, histories, and philosophies of racial capitalism from its origins to the contemporary moment. The centrality of racialized chattel slavery and Indigenous dispossession to the origins of capitalism — along with activists’ efforts to expose the ongoing legacy of New World slavery — illumines connections between capitalism, race, indentured labor, and coerced labor across time and geography, with particular focus on spaces like Hong Kong, the Caribbean, and the Americas. This course ranges across different disciplines and regions to survey how race and capitalism have been conjoined both theoretically and materially.

Sample Texts:

• Black Marxism by Cedric Robinson

• Scenes of Subjection by Saidiya Hartman

• “Racial Capitalism” by Jodi Melamed

• The Extractive Zone by Macarena Gomez-Barris

• Intimacies of Four Continents by Lisa Lowe

• Golden Gulag by Ruth Wilson Gilmore

• Saltwater Slavery by Stephanie Smallwood

• “Whiteness as Property” by Cheryl Harris

Sample Assignment:

Choose one item in your life—it can be anything, you cellphone, your dorm room desk, the silicone Tupperware you love, truly anything—and much like “The Anatomy of an AI” does, trace the routes of capital that produce the object you’ve chosen. For example, if you chose a silicone reusable Ziploc bag, you might trace the creation of it to DuPont, a company that has facilities in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, where air pollution is so high that incidents of lung cancer exceed most elsewhere in the United States. Create a map (hand-drawn, plotted on ArcGIS, or otherwise) to connect the global aspects of your item, as well as a critical reflective paper. Be prepared to present to your peers.