Was there such a thing as ‘race’ as we know it prior to the historical advent of capitalism? Does gender have the same social meanings and consequences in capitalist and non-capitalist social arrangements? Is the gender binary a colonial invention? Is there a ‘limit point to capitalist equality’? Are patriarchy and white supremacy systems in the same sense that capitalism is a system? Do we live at the intersection of multiple systems of oppression or are our multifaceted social experiences shaped by different consequences of one unified overarching social system? This course will address these questions and more at the intersection of history, political economy, and cultural studies. Focusing on the 'systems of oppression' debates, our aim will be to determine the relationship between capitalism, as a historical mode of human interdependence, and the multifarious forms of social oppression that have marked its history. In pursuit of this aim, we will critically examine the different types of arguments that scholars and activists have used to both connect and disconnect the study of capitalism from the study of race and gender formations. [Track C]