The way we analyse social phenomena and economic systems fundamentally depends upon our understanding of how these very constellations came into being. Same holds true for capitalism, whose creation has been the subject of scholarly debates for as long as the system itself prevails. Liberal and orthodox Marxist scholars alike, while fundamentally diverging in their normative assessment of these developments, mostly grasp the emergence of capitalism as a phenomenon whose roots are located in the intertwined developments of the rise of the enlightenment tradition, the industrialisation of the European production apparatus, early state formation and the land enclosures in 18th century Great Britain. Accordingly, any analysis within these frames perceives of the economy as a matter that is fundamentally characterized by industrial production or the ever-pertaining conflict between the bourgeoisie and the workers. While these notions are central within capitalism, they are but one part of the story. ----- In this course we will follow another, sometimes complementary but perhaps contradictory, approach, assuming that the erection of a social and economic system of domination in the transatlantic sphere, starting in the late 15th century, provided the necessary pre-conditions for the rise of capitalism and thus lies at the core of its logic. This system consisted of colonialism, hereditary racial slavery, and patriarchal economic organization. We will follow this central argument and ask what it means for the analysis of contemporary economic systems if these dynamics and their continuities still mark the very heart of capitalisms social and economic organization. ----- Central questions: - How did the systems of colonialism, hereditary racial slavery and patriarchal economic organization emerge? - Why were they necessary preconditions for the rise of Global Capitalism? - What are the visible continuities of this threefold structure and how can a critical Epistemology be made accountable for its’ analysis? ----- Recommended Readings: Folbre, Nancy (2020): The Rise and Decline of Patriarchal Systems. An Intersectional Political Economy. London: Verso. --- Morgan, Jennifer L. (2021): Reckoning with Slavery. Gender, Kinship and Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic. Durham: Duke University Press. --- Williams, Eric (2022): Capitalism and Slavery. London: Penguin Classics. ----- Proof of Participation & Examination: Next to regular engagements with the literature provided, every participant will have to take on two particularly active roles in order to get their active participation certified. Every participant will have to take the role as a Text Expert and as a Discussant once – but for two separate sessions. You will never be left alone with those jobs, but always be a team of at least three participants performing the tasks. --- Text Expert: For one chosen session you will act as a text expert. This job entails that you have profoundly read the primary literature of the session and are well aware of its content. This does explicitly not imply that you have to understand everything and give a PowerPoint Input (please refrain from doing so), but it will mean that you have seriously engaged with the text and taken notes on its central thesis, its relation to other topics covered in the course and are able to share and discuss questions and critical remarks that came to your mind during the reading. Furthermore, you are expected to have covered central parts of the additional reading and bring some debates of it into the general discussion. Discussant: For one chosen session you will act as a team of discussants. This job entails that you have profoundly read the primary literature and prepared a discussion of (some of its) contents in a discussion paper of approx. 1500 words (+/- 10%). The discussion papers have to be uploaded at latest until 6 o’clock PM the day before the session and are intended to kickstart a lively discussion about some core aspects of the text. You are free to choose which aspects, hypotheses, or connections with other course contents or exterior theoretical and empirical debates you want to focus on within your discussion paper. The discussion papers will be made available to the other course participants, and you will have maximum five minutes to briefly introduce your argument (approx. after half of the session) and start the discussion. ----- In case you need a proof of examination and full credit for the course you are expected to write a term paper of 5.000-6.000 words. Please do only hand in papers via Mail and in PDF format in an easily readable format (i.e., Times New Roman, 12, formatted in justified text, line spacing of 1.5 cm) with coherent referencing (style choice is yours). While you can freely choose a topic, as long as it has some connections to the debates and the literature covered in the course, shortly introducing the topic via Mail, and considering the feedback from the instructor is mandatory. If you are not sure what to write about, or if your ideas need a short discussion or feedback: please feel always free to get in touch – also with early-stage ideas. Schließen