International relations
Race, Gender and Global Capitalism
Module code: 015IRS
Level 6
30 credits in spring semester
Teaching method: Seminar
Assessment modes: Coursework, Essay
Race, Gender, and Global Capitalism offers an in-depth exploration of what Eric Hobsbawm once called "vulgar Marxism."
Bringing together historical materialist, post/decolonial, indigenous, queer, and black feminist theories, this module examines how raced, sexed, and gendered forms of exploitation, expropriation, and extraction have been—and remain—central to capital accumulation on a global scale.
Topics covered include:
- the witch hunts and the enclosure of the commons
- the colonial policing of sexuality and non-normative kinship formations
- enslavement and the violence of (un)gendering
- sex work and gestational labour
- migrant domestic workers and the globalisation of reproduction
- the struggle for trans liberation
- disability and carceral ableism
- family abolition and the horizon of revolutionary care.
Module learning outcomes
- Examine the global political economy of race and gender using a variety of theoretical perspectives.
- Identify relationships between gender, sexuality, race, empire, disability, and global capitalism.
- Critically deploy feminist methods in historical and theoretical analysis of global capitalism.
- Work collaboratively with peers and develop independent research projects.
- Critically draw on and use a variety of resources, including theoretical texts, poetry, art, and music.