ENGL 050R. 19th Century Radicalisms

What can the radical thinking and practice of the past teach us about the political possibilities of today? This course explores the explosion of anti-slavery, anti-racist, socialist, free love, anarchist, and anti-imperialist writing in and around the nineteenth-century US. It looks to these past radicalisms not only as forerunners of present ones, but also for models of revolutionary world-making that may appear strange, irrational, or incomprehensible from the point of view of the present. We will read primary texts across a range of genres, placing a particular emphasis on the early Black radical tradition, as well as a selection of secondary texts to help us theorize and historicize this work.
Eligible for GLBL-Paired

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