Social Relationships & Responsibilities - Theme: Social Reproduction Theory and Radical Politics of Care

This course begins by tracing the ways in which waged and unwaged labor have been conceptualized by Marxist feminists. We will read major works of social reproduction theorists such as Tithi Bhattacharya, Nancy Fraser, and Silvia Federici, paying close attention to how social reproduction is in relationship to neoliberal conditions and the current “crisis of care.” 

This course will focus on the specific contexts of the rise of capitalism in Western Europe and the U.S. and how attendant histories of slavery, colonialism, and im/migration have produced distinct dynamics of class and social reproduction labor. Through understanding the ways in which the confluence of racism, sexism, capitalism, and neoliberalism has resulted in the current moment, we begin to unpack the ways the U.S. has come to define what counts as “work” and who counts as “workers.” By doing so, this course encourages students to develop their own critical understandings of the current conditions of precarious life and slow death that are sustained by intersecting systems of power.

To conclude, the course will draw on selection of works theorizing queer, trans, and radical politics of care, including transformative justice, mutual aid, and abolitionist models that have been doing the work of the current moment for lifetimes. These subjugated knowledges have formed the bases for contentious, powerful, and compelling care models from which we may continue to draw strength, come what may.