Reconstruction for Reconstitution

This class will think about transitional moments in the “aftermath” of long histories of oppression by asking about the meanings, potentials and challenges of reconstruction and reconstitution. It will do so by thinking comparatively across the different historical and situated experiences of Reconstruction in the United States, independence from British rule in India, and the transition from apartheid in South Africa. Specifically, it will focus on a close reading of W.E.B. DuBois’ “Black Reconstruction” set against the constitutionalist and anti-casteist writings of B.R. Ambedkar (one of the architects of the Indian Constitution), and the writings of South African historian, educator and anti- apartheid revolutionary Neville Alexander. The attempt here is to think about what emancipatory thought means when systems of oppression are formally “overturned,” but the social formations that structured them are very much still in place. How do we understand the relationships between the struggle to repudiate injustice and the struggle to build just institutions in such conjunctures? Is transition from oppression always doomed to disappointment and failure? Can something be learned by thinking across time and historical experience? Through a finite and close reading of these three thinkers, the hope is to think rigorously and imaginatively about the promises and pitfalls of transitional histories in ways that keep open their insistent optimism of the will.

ANTH 50541 | CCCT 50541