ENGL 553A

Studies in Literary Theory (3 credits)

Instructor: Chris Lee
Section: 001
Term: 1

Reading Race and Capital

“Race” and “class” are two of the most frequently used terms in contemporary literary and cultural studies. This course surveys influential theoretical texts that attempt to explain how these two formations are related to each other within various scenes of modernity, including colonialism, modernization, and Western multiculturalism. The first part of the course focuses on key texts in the Marxist tradition that have been influential for later work on race. The second part considers the roles of imperialism and colonialism. The third part focuses on formations of race in Western liberal democracies. In order to ground our theoretical readings, we will also read several texts drawn from twentieth century American literature.

Tentative Reading List:

PART 1

Karl Marx, excerpts from Capital and other texts
Georg Lukács, History and Class Consciousness
Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”
Walter Benjamin, “The Concept of History” and “Critique of Violence”

PART 2

Vladimir Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
---. The Wretched of the Earth

PART 3

Denise Ferreira da Silva, Toward a Global Idea of Race
Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States
Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Class, and Nation: Ambiguous Identities
Rey Chow, The Protestant Ethnic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Paul Gilroy, Against Race

Literary Texts (inserted throughout the term):

Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man
Saidiya Hartman, Lose Your Mother
Jessica Hagedorn, Dogeaters
Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior