123042 PS PS Literary Studies (2023W)

Writing in the aftermath of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests against the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and other Black people at the hands of police, historian Robin D.G. Kelley describes the activist organizers as “new abolitionists” who “are not interested in making capitalism fairer, safer, and less racist. They know this is impossible. Rather, they want nothing less than to bring an end to ‘racial capitalism’” (“Foreword: Why Black Marxism? Why Now?” xi). His words open up a series of questions that this course will address, beginning with: What is racial capitalism? How is state-sanctioned violence against Black people in America – and worldwide – a result of not only racism, but capitalism as well? If the 19th century abolitionists fought against the socioeconomic institution of chattel slavery, what are the “new abolitionists” in the 21st century fighting against – and what are they fighting for? How does the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, banned in the U.S. in 1808, and chattel slavery, abolished in 1865, continue to shape the world we live in in 2023? What did earlier efforts to “bring an end to racial capitalism” look like, and what have the “new abolitionists” learned from them? What critiques of racial capitalism have emerged from the Black intellectual and literary traditions over the past century? Finally, how have African American authors not only depicted Black life under racial capitalism but, crucially, also imagined what life would look like beyond its confines?

Guided by Cedric J. Robinson’s 1983 Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, this course invites us to examine how (African) American authors and thinkers have analyzed, criticized, and imagined alternatives to racial capitalism. In search for answers to our guiding questions, we will turn to works of scholarship, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and film from the 20th and 21st centuries, and apply key critical terms such as racial capitalism, (Black) Marxism, the Black radical tradition, abolitionism, the prison-industrial complex, and Afrofuturism, among others.

Throughout the semester, students will also be working on their academic writing skills, including development and support of original and debatable arguments, structure and format of the academic essay, academic writing style, research and source evaluation, and integrating and documenting primary and secondary sources.