This course seeks to engage in a critical reconstruction of the concept of “race.” Foregrounding approaches that have challenged the reality of race as a biological or cultural-essentialist foundationalist category, we will explore materialist theories that examine the place of race and racism in social systems of expropriation and exploitation–especially capitalism, slavery, colonialism, and neo-imperialism. Readings may include texts by Oliver Cromwell Cox, C.L.R. James, W.E.B. Du Bois, Saidiya V. Hartman, Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, José Carlos Mariátegui, Stuart Hall, Walter Rodney, Angela Davis, Barbara Fields, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, among others.