Necropolitics and Black "Fugitive" Politics
PHIL 355
Fall 2021 not offered
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In his important essay interrogating the (im)possibility of black sociality, Fred Moten attempts to find an order of black social life which would unfold in the very confrontation between black (social) death and the law. However, as he argues, this form of black life would be "reducible neither to simple interdiction nor bare transgression." The form of black life that interests Moten is essentially one of "fugitivity." In a recent response to Moten's text, David Marriott worries that "by writing blackness as ceaseless futgitivity," Moten advances "a position in which blackness is only black when it exceeds its racial disavowal" and therefore blackness "can only be recognized as black in so far as it escapes the racism of its history." In this course, we will trace and follow the implications of Moten's intervention. More specifically, we will explore what forms and figures of sovereignty an aesthetics and politics of fugitive subjectivity could yield given that "black life" remains arguably the most precarious form of living under various contemporary "necropolitical" apparatuses of sanctioned racial exclusion, control, persecution and--in worse cases--genocide. Key figures will include Frantz Fanon, Achille Mbembe, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jared Sexton, David Marriott, Fred Moten, Christina Sharpe, Saidiya Hartman, Alexander G. Weheliye, Elizabeth Povinelli, and Gayatri Spivak. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS CHUM |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (PHIL)(PHIL-Philosophy)(PHIL-Social Jus) |
Major Readings:
Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism
Achille Mbembe, On the Postcolony
David Marriott, On Black Men
Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being
Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference
Saidiya Hartman, Scenes of Subjection
Elizabeth Povinelli, Geontologies: A Requiem to Late Liberalism
* in addition to selected essays by the figures included in the course description.
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Examinations and Assignments:
5 reflection short essays (2-3 pages); one final essay; one presentation; class participation |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
The course will be run as a higher-level philosophy/theory seminar. Although there's no
prerequisite, students should ideally be familiar with some 20th century continental philosophy and critical race theory. |
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