International relations

Race, Gender and Global Capitalism

Module code: 015IRS
Level 6
30 credits in spring semester
Teaching method: Seminar
Assessment modes: Essay, Coursework

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.