Social Thought & Polic. Econ 491H - STPEC Focus Seminar I
Fall
2019
01
4.00
Svati Shah
M 4:00PM 6:30PM
UMass Amherst
34027
Bartlett Hall room 109
svatipshah@umass.edu
A four credit honors seminar for STPEC students who have completed STPEC 391H. Seminar topic changes each semester. Fulfills the STPEC Focus seminar requirement.
STPEC students only STPEC 391H Title: Race, Caste and Capital -
The seminar will examine the co-constitutive historical formations of race and caste in relation to the expansion of capitalism and European high colonialism in the 18th and 19th centuries. Rather than seeing this as a period for the 'origins' of race or caste, the course will examine the ways in which race and caste were discursively mediated in the period of high colonialism to shape the kind of racialized hierarchies that we are familiar with today. The course puts the urgent concerns of African American Studies, South Asian Studies and heterodox economics, with an emphasis on questions of political economy, together in a semester-long inquiry into how racialized hierarchies have been essential to producing and maintaining class stratification and geopolitical power. We will primarily draw from the American Black Radical tradition and the South Asian Dalit Radical tradition for our readings in this course. These readings will focus on how European colonial and imperial regimes of power necessitated and furthered racialized hierarchies through regimes of chattel slavery, indentured servitude and bonded labour. We will also aim to understand how these regimes elicited some of the most radical and revolutionary struggles for liberation in the world. While our readings will be wide ranging in scope, our discussions will focus on the fairly specific question of what relation we can postulate, based on historical evidence and historiographical critiques, between contemporary instantiations of race and caste in different parts of the world. We will necessarily pay close attention to axes of gender and sexuality throughout the seminar, drawing on examples and critical work from authors working in the Caribbean, South Asia, North America, South Africa, East Africa, and the UK. *Note - student who don't meet the enrollment requirements may contact the instructor.
The seminar will examine the co-constitutive historical formations of race and caste in relation to the expansion of capitalism and European high colonialism in the 18th and 19th centuries. Rather than seeing this as a period for the 'origins' of race or caste, the course will examine the ways in which race and caste were discursively mediated in the period of high colonialism to shape the kind of racialized hierarchies that we are familiar with today. The course puts the urgent concerns of African American Studies, South Asian Studies and heterodox economics, with an emphasis on questions of political economy, together in a semester-long inquiry into how racialized hierarchies have been essential to producing and maintaining class stratification and geopolitical power. We will primarily draw from the American Black Radical tradition and the South Asian Dalit Radical tradition for our readings in this course. These readings will focus on how European colonial and imperial regimes of power necessitated and furthered racialized hierarchies through regimes of chattel slavery, indentured servitude and bonded labour. We will also aim to understand how these regimes elicited some of the most radical and revolutionary struggles for liberation in the world. While our readings will be wide ranging in scope, our discussions will focus on the fairly specific question of what relation we can postulate, based on historical evidence and historiographical critiques, between contemporary instantiations of race and caste in different parts of the world. We will necessarily pay close attention to axes of gender and sexuality throughout the seminar, drawing on examples and critical work from authors working in the Caribbean, South Asia, North America, South Africa, East Africa, and the UK. *Note - student who don't meet the enrollment requirements may contact the instructor.