Section Info: ENGL-338-01

Course Title: Aesthetics of Racial Capitalism
Start Date: 09/06/2023 End Date: 12/19/2023
Term: Fall Semester 2023
Description: "Race is the modality in which class is lived," wrote the late cultural theorist Stuart Hall. This course takes Hall's axiom as a starting point for considering the racial, gendered, and sexualized character of capitalist domination. Throughout the course students will explore both the political economy and the cultural imagery of racial capitalism. One question we will grapple with is the following: if capital itself is as imperceptible and objectively real as gravity, what are the common tropes we use to apprehend its circulation? Is it the stock market ticker tape, the shipping container, or the industrial wasteland? Drawing on writers and artists of color from around the world, we will consider ways they offer cognitive maps of the gendered and sexualized contours of racial capitalism. Authors may include Octavia Butler, Chang-rae Lee, Leslie Marmon Silko, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, and Ruth Ozeki. Visual artists may include Xu Bing, Otobong Nkanga, Allan deSouza, Rodney McMillian, Mark Bradford, Takahiro Iwasaki, Anicka Yi, and Candace Lin.
Distribution(s): I - Humanities , MP - Multicultural Perspectives , SI - Speaking-Intensive
Academic Level Of Course: Undergraduate     Credits:4.00    

Faculty         Phone         Email address        
Iyko Day   413-538-3222   iday@mtholyoke.edu  

Meeting Dates         Method         Meeting days         Meeting times         Building name         Room     Frequency    
09/06/2023 - 12/19/2023   Seminar   Tuesday   01:30PM - 04:20PM   CLAP - Clapp Laboratory   422   Weekly

REGISTRATION DETAILS

Requisite Courses        
Prereq: 8 credits in English or CST-200/CRPE-205. Take previously   Required  

Comments        
Additional Comments        
Course Tags        
CST0001   CSTH: Critical Social Thought major   This course has been approved to count towards the Critical Social Thought major and minor.  
CST0001   CSTH: Critical Social Thought minor   This course has been approved to count towards the Critical Social Thought major and minor.  
CRPE0001   CRPE-1: CRPE - Major Pathway/Minor   This course has been approved to count towards the CRPE major pathway and the CRPE minor.  
CRPE0003   CRPE-3: Critical Social Thought - Major Pathway   This course has been approved to count towards the CRPE Critical Social Thought major pathway.  
CRPE0007   CRPE-RE: Representation Courses   This course has been approved to count towards the CRPE Representation requirement.  

Cross-listed Sections        
None  

Course Availability
Section status: Open     Capacity: 18     Enrollment: 15     Available: 3     Waitlist: 0

BOOK INFORMATION

Book List         Required         Publisher Full Price        
Title: All This Could Be Different
Author: Matthews, Sarah Thankam
Copyright: 2022
Edition:
Volume:
ISBN: 0593489128
Publisher: Viking
Required   13.48  

Additional Book Comments        
This is the complete book list for this class.