Fall 2022 Syllabi! “J.R.R. Tolkien” and “Histories of Anti-Capitalism”!

My syllabi are up for Fall 2022: a slightly revised version of my J.R.R. Tolkien class that utilizes this semester’s Haggery Museum of Art exhibit, and a brand new grad course titled “Histories of Anti-Capitalism.” Here’s the general plan for the anti-capitalism course, which is going to get finalized in consultation with the students who will be leading discussion each week:

WEEK		THEMES AND ASSIGNMENTS
WEEK 1		What Is Capitalism? What Is Anti-Capitalism? Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “The Communist Manifesto” [marxists.org] Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism (excerpt) [D2L] Existential Comics, “Explaining Capitalism to Aliens”
Sep. 5		LABOR DAY
WEEK 2		Four Futures Peter Frase, Four Futures
WEEK 3		The Luddites and after Gavin Mueller, Breaking Things at Work
WEEK 4		Critique Barbara Foley, Marxist Literary Criticism Today
WEEK 5		Utopia Fredric Jameson, “Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture,” “Utopia as Replication,” and An American Utopia [D2L and YouTube]
WEEK 6		Postcolonalism Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
WEEK 7		Black Marxism C.L.R. James, Cedric Robinson, bell hooks, and Angela Davis [D2L]
WEEK 8		Gender Silvia Federici (wages for housework), Kathi Weeks (abolition of the family) [D2L]
WEEK 9		20th century text we will choose together
WEEK 10		Queer Marxism José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia
WEEK 11		Disability disability rights movements, the ADA, Marta Russell and Ravi Malhorta, Sami Schalk, “Neoliberalism and the Commodification of Mental Health” [D2L]
WEEK 12		Ecology John Bellamy Foster (ecology against capitalism), André Gorz (“The Social Ideology of the Motorcar”), Kathryn Yusoff (the Anthropocene), Greta Thunberg [D2L and Web]
WEEK 13		The University How the University Works; student movements; precarious labor and unionization; student debt abolition; state funding [D2L and Web]
		THANKSGIVING BREAK: NO CLASS
WEEK 14		21st century text we will choose together
WEEK 15		PRESENTATIONS
Dec. 16		FINAL PAPERS DUE