From Racial Capitalism to Prison Abolitionism: a BISR Teach-In
As protests continue to convulse the nation in the wake of the racist killings of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd, among countless others, Brooklyn Institute for Social Research is organizing a two-day teach-in, free and open to the public, in which BISR faculty will explore issues and concepts that directly address, or help contextualize, the crisis of American racism, criminal justice, and dispossession.
Taking place Thursday and Friday, June 25th and 26th (12-6pm), and streaming live on the BISR Facebook page, the teach-in will feature BISR faculty Nara Roberta Silva, Anthony Alessandrini, Patrick Blanchfield, Raphaele Chappe, Danya Glabau, Ajay Singh Chaudhary, and Asma Abbas, each teaching, in turn, on topics ranging from racial capitalism to policing to race and technology to political violence to prison abolitionism. Faculty will teach from specific texts, which viewers can access and read in advance by RSVPing below. The event is free to attend and can be viewed, regardless of whether you have a Facebook account, on the BISR public Facebook page (and we encourage attendees to submit questions and comments in the comment section).
BISR TEACH-IN SCHEDULE
THURSDAY
12-2pm | What is Racial Capitalism? | Nara Roberta Silva and Ajay Singh Chaudhary (discussant)
Reading: Preface and Introduction of Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (UNC) by Cedric J. Robinson (with the preface written by Robin D.G. Kelley)
2-4pm | A Short Course on Neoliberalism | Raphaele Chappe and Ajay Singh Chaudhary
Reading: Chapter 2 of Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown (Verso) by Philip Mirowski
4-6pm | The Imperial History of US Policing, the Wages of Austerity, and the Idea of Defunding | Patrick Blanchfield and Suzanne Schneider (discussant)
Readings: Selections from The End of Policing (Verso) by Alex Vitale, “The Imperial Origins of American Policing: Militarization and Imperial Feedback in the Early 20th Century” by Julian Go, Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing (California) by Stuart Schrader, Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics (Metropolitan Books), A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford) by David Harvey, “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police” by Mariame Kaaba
FRIDAY
12-2pm | Understanding Political Violence | Ajay Singh Chaudhary and Rebecca Ariel Porte (discussant)
Readings: Chapter 1 of The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press) by Frantz Fanon and chapter 1 of The Concept of the Political (Chicago) by Carl Schmitt
2-4pm | Race, Technology, and Biopolitics | Danya Glabau and Shimrit Lee (discussant)
Readings: Pantopticism chapter of Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Vintage) by Michel Foucault, chapter 3 of Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness (Duke) by Simone Brown, and “Racial Fictions, Biological Facts: Expanding the Sociological Imagination through Speculative Methods” by Ruha Benjamin (published in Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience (issue 2, volume 2))
4-6pm | Prison Abolitionism | Anthony Alessandrini and Asma Abbas (discussant)
Reading and Podcast: Chapters 1, 4, 5, and 6 of Are Prisons Obsolete? (Seven Stories Press) by Angela Davis and Intercepted Podcast: Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes the Case for Abolition
Event Schedule
Friday, 12-6PM (EST)June 26 — June 26, 2020
$0.00
Event is over. Check out our upcoming events.