Marxism and Climate Crisis
CHUM 398
Spring 2025
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
COL 398, STS 398, GRST 298 |
| Course Cluster and Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory Certificate |
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, productive, and consumptive practices 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 and human sociality but also of non-human nature (fossilized carbon, wild animal biomass, topsoil, clean water, forests, etc.). Our perspective for studying and understanding this destructive transformation of nature will primarily be informed by a set of recent "eco Marxist" writings that oppose eco-modernist technocracy and instead reconceptualize capitalism as "a way of organizing nature" (J. Moore); extend the notion of social alienation to a "metabolic rift" between the labor process and the natural environment (Saito's "degrowth communism"); and explore the economic and ideological drivers behind the current expansion of fossil fuel extraction (Malm and the Zetkin collective). In light of the Center's semester theme of Energy and Exhaustion, we will ask three kinds 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 social revolution in our age of emerging fascism and overshooting climate limits?). |
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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: (College of Letters)(German Studies Minor)(German Studies)(Science and Technology Studies)(Social, Cultural and Critical Theory Certificate) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 75% - 89% |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Andreas Malm, FOSSIL CAPITAL: THE RISE OF STEAM POWER AND THE ROOTS OF GLOBAL WARMING ISBN 9781784781293
Andreas Malm and Wim Carton, OVERSHOOT: HOW THE WORLD SURRENDERED TO CLIMATE BREAKDOWN ISBN 9781804293980
Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright, CLIMATE LEVIATHAN: A POLITICAL THEORY OF OUR PLANETARY. FUTURE ISBN 9781786634450
Kohei Saito, MARX IN THE ANTHROPOCENE: TOWARDS THE IDEA OF DEGROWTH COMMUNISM ISBN 9781009366182
Salvage Collective, THE TRAGEDY OF THE WORKER: TOWARDS THE PROLETAROCENE ISBN 9781839762949
The Zetkin Collective and Andreas Malm, WHITE SKIN, BLACK FUEL: ON THE DANGER OF FOSSIL FASCISM. ISBN 9781839761744
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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: -1 | 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: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 1 |
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