Marxism and Climate Crisis
CHUM 398
Spring 2025
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
COL 398, STS 398, GRST 298 |
Since the Communist Manifesto of 1848, the notion of "crisis" has played a prominent role in Marxist theorizing. Today's intensifying climate crisis is lending new theoretical and political weight to the Marxist critique of extractive and consumptive capitalist actions that transform nature into a means of production for ensuring ceaseless economic growth through the accumulation of capital. The consequences of this are not only the exhaustion of human labor-power but also of non-human nature (fossilized carbon, wild animal biomass, top soils, clean water, etc.). Our perspective for studying and understanding this transformation of nature will primarily be informed by a set of recent "eco Marxist" writings that break with traditional Marxist productivism in favor of an eco-critical analysis that reconceptualizes capitalism neither as an economic nor social system but rather as "a way of organizing nature" (J. Moore). In light of the Center's semester theme of Energy and Exhaustion, we will ask three sets of questions: historical (about the origins of the Capitalocene and of "fossil capital"); theoretical (how is Marx's "general law of accumulation" also a law of environmental depletion and planetary limits?); and political (traditional "Promethean" Marxism envisioned revolution as the full actualization of productive forces; what is the meaning of revolution in the age of natural exhaustion and climate crisis, when the limits of human historical agency are drawing closer with each new tipping point?). |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA CHUM |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (COL)(CSCT) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 75% - 89% |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Wim Carton and Andreas Malm, OVERSHOOT: HOW THE WORLD SURRENDERED TO CLIMATE BREAKDOWN. ISBN 9781804293980
John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark, THE ROBBERY OF NATURE: CAPITALISM AND THE ECOLOGICAL RIFT. ISBN 978-1-58367-839-8
Andreas Malm, FOSSIL CAPITAL: THE RISE OF STEAM POWER AND THE ROOTS OF GLOBAL WARMING. ISBN 9781784781293
Jason Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright, CLIMATE LEVIATHAN: A POLITICAL THEORY OF OUR PLANETARY FUTURE. ISBN 9781786634450
Moore, CAPITALISM IN THE WEB OF LIFE: ECOLOGY AND THE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL. ISBN 9781781689028
Éric Pineault, A SOCIAL ECOLOGY OF CAPITAL. ISBN: 9780745343778
Kohei Saito, SLOW DOWN: THE DEGROWTH MANIFESTO. ISBN 9781662602368
Salvage Collective, THE TRAGEDY OF THE WORKER: TOWARDS THE PROLETAROCENE. ISBN: 9781839762949
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Examinations and Assignments:
Three critical analysis papers |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
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| Instructor(s): Plass,Ulrich Times: ..T.R.. 02:50PM-04:10PM; Location: FISK404; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: 0 | JR major: 0 | | |
| Seats Available: 2 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 7 | JR non-major: 8 | SO: 0 | FR: 0 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 1 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 1 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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