2023-24 Academic Catalog

This course introduces students to the work of Karl Marx by exploring parts of Capital volumes one, two and three as well as of the Grundrisse in tandem with 21st century discussions of carboniferous capitalism, digital labor and colonial dispossession. Using concepts of the “metabolic” relationship to nature, “original accumulation” and of Marx’s analysis of machines and technological obsolescence we will together chart a course through 21st century attempts to make Marx’s 19th century critique of industrial capitalism fruitful for an understanding of today’s world.