Everything, Everywhere: The Timespace of Racial Capitalism
Analysis of theoretical methods and critical approaches practiced in the discipline of English studies. Required of all students in the English Honours Literature and Language and Literature programs. For ENGL courses at the 200- or 300- level, prior completion of at least one 100- level ENGL course is recommended.
This course focuses on the theories, histories, and philosophies of racial capitalism from its origins, with particular emphasis on its functions in the contemporary moment. This course ranges across different disciplines and regions to survey how race and capitalism have been conjoined both theoretically and materially. Some themes we will explore over the course of the semester include: information capitalism, neoliberalism, ghost labor, borders/ migration, carcerality, (in)debt(edness), anti-capitalism and the popular, the Anthropocene, and so forth. We will particularly be interested in how those social formations correspond and diverge. This course takes a heterogenous and expansive definition of theory; as such, we will engage with myriad forms of texts including music, video games, poetry, performance art, visual art, film, and so forth.