Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Lehrstuhl für Praktische Philosophie und Sozialphilosophie & Centre for Social Critique

Call for Applications

International Critical Theory Summer School 2025

JUNE 30 – JULY 4, 2025

Centre for Social Critique Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

RACIAL CAPITALISM

The term “racial capitalism” is increasingly used to insist that, as a matter of historical fact, industrial capitalism was built on the basis of colonialism and slavery, and that, as a matter of sociological fact, capitalist accumulation continues to operate through racial differentiation and hierarchization. In recent years, “racial capitalism” has attracted not only sustained theoretical attention, but it has also become an important reference point for radical social movements such as the Movement for Black Lives. It is not difficult to see why: race (just like gender) structures who can access jobs, wages, housing, credit, mobility across borders and other social goods; and being subjected to austerity, police violence, imprisonment, environmental hazards and health risks is in fundamental ways inflected by racism. Even if one recognizes the reality and indeed centrality of these phenomena to an adequate understanding of capitalism, however, it remains disputed whether, and if so how, the notion of racial capitalism can be systematically spelled out in ways that go beyond its often vague and undertheorized invocation.

In this summer school we will explore some of the central philosophical and socio-theoretical issues the turn to “racial capitalism” raises: Is the link between capitalism and racism historically contingent or necessary? If capitalism is necessarily racist, what makes it so? If race and gender are not accidental to, but constitutive of capitalism, how can the relation between class, race and gender be conceptualized in ways that also track their realignment in the current constellation? If, in the framework of racial capitalism, race is not primarily an identity but a structure of power, how does this impact our analysis both of capitalism and the movements that struggle against oppression and exploitation? And if the universal proletariat can no longer serve as the subject of revolutionary emancipation, what is the horizon for anti-capitalist struggles and transversal forms of solidarity today that can prevent emancipatory politics from splintering into a diversity of struggles that often remain at cross-purposes?

The summer school will involve plenary lectures and discussions, reading sessions, small group discussions and a public panel debate. We will explore how the link between capitalism and racial domination has been addressed in the Marxist tradition (in Marx’s own writings and those of Rosa Luxemburg) before turning to later approaches that in part depart from and in part reconstitute this tradition, such as W. E. B. Du Bois’s and Cedric Robinson’s historically informed analysis of how racial stratification came to be constitutive for the development and stability of capitalist societies and Stuart Hall’s analysis of how racial capitalism generates its own internal contradictions and various forms of resistance to it. Tommie Shelby, Inés Valdez, Robert Gooding-Williams and Manuela Bojadžijev join us as instructors and present their own work on racial capitalism.

To apply for participation, graduate students and junior scholars are invited to submit a précis of their take on core issues in the debate on social transformation and a CV (max. 1 page per document). The précis should show which particular background knowledge and systematic positions the applicants would contribute to our joint discussions. Please submit your application in a single PDF document and make sure that the title of your precis summarizes its content.

Deadline for applications: January 19^th, 2025

Students at the Berlin Universities may apply until April 16^th, 2025

Please apply by using the form provided on our website.

Participation in the Summer School is free of charge. Please note that there is no funding available for this year's summer school. Unfortunately, we are therefore not able to provide any travel funds for international students, but recommend getting in touch with your home institutions about possible financial support for attending the summer school. Participants are responsible for independently organizing their travel and accommodation.

Please check our website for updates and further information: http://criticaltheoryinberlin.de/summer-school/

Instructors:

Tommie Shelby (Harvard University)

Inés Valdez (Johns Hopkins University)

Robert Gooding-Williams (Yale University)

Manuela Bojadžijev (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)

and

Rahel Jaeggi (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)

Robin Celikates (Freie Universität Berlin) Christian Schmidt (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)

Co-Organized by Rahel Jaeggi, Robin Celikates, Christian Schmidt, Zveta Pauly (Centre for Social Critique Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and Alice Crary (The New School for Social Research)