Abolitionist Politics After Ferguson: Race, Prisons, Police, and Theorizing White Supremacy
Sean Parson
Abolition: A Journal of Insurgent Politics
2:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Abolition is a radical call for eliminating the practices of subjugation that can be traced back to slavery. It is a collective endeavor to build an alternative society that renders obsolete the inhumane legacies of colonialism, extraction, and exploitation. From W.E.B. Du Bois, to Angela Davis, to Joel Olson, race is central to understanding how these legacies refashion themselves into new forms of domination. This short course is designed to provide an introduction to abolition as a thought, a politics, and a movement. Looking at both the history of this political project and the currently debates surrounding it following the uprisings in Ferguson, Baltimore, and beyond, this course will explore the theoretical and political currents of contemporary abolitionism around race, police, prisons, in the United States. Is there a way to address the issues of slavery in the United States without an abolitionist perspective? If not, what does an contemporary abolitionist politics look like?
**All Short Courses will take place on Wednesday, August 31 at the APSA 2016 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA.