LLSW
3062

Monster, Bacteria, Fugitive, Ghost: Supplementary Politics

Eugene Lang College Lib Arts: Literary Studies

Liberal Arts
Undergraduate Course
Monster, Bacteria, Fugitive
Spring 2026
Taught By: Alexandra Chasin
Section: A

CRN: 16711

Credits: 4

Playing with the work of thinker, poet, post-activist, teacher Bayo Akomolafe, we explore the possibilities that emerge in spaces where monsters, fugitives, bacteria, and ghosts exceed the normal and the knowable. Concretely speaking, this means reading blog posts, poetry, and essays by Akomolafe, including “What Climate Collapse Asks of Us,” “We Will Tell Our Own Story,” and These Wilds Beyond Our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home. It means expanding our imagination to engage a post-activist environmental politics, one that skirts the limits of inherited institutions and categories, and follows cracks and fissures into unstable networks. How can the minor gesture venture toward fields of deviation that upend dominant relational systems? How can shapeshifting, sensation, and art making traipse off the path of coloniality and upset the mathematics of capture? We are called to observe the way we merge with history and revise the future, and to engage an embodied ethics beyond bad and good; we respond to work that invites us to play. Play, here, means individual and collaborative creative exercises, in various genres and/or media, implied or explicitly instigated by and through Akomolafe's work. Bring your desire to sustain complexity, your heart, and your not knowing.

Prerequisites: No Prerequisites
Co-Requisites: No Co-requisites

College: Eugene Lang College Lib Arts (LC)

Department: Literary Studies (LIT)

Campus: New York City (GV)

Course Format: Seminar (R)

Modality: In-Person

Max Enrollment: 18

Repeat Limit: N/A

Add/Drop Deadline: February 3, 2026 (Tuesday)

Online Withdrawal Deadline: April 14, 2026 (Tuesday)

Seats Available: Yes

Status: Open*

* Status information is updated every few minutes. The status of this course may have changed since the last update. Open seats may have restrictions that will prevent some students from registering. Updated: 9:16am EDT 10/6/2025

Meeting Info:
Days: Monday, Wednesday
Times: 4:00pm - 5:40pm
Building: TBD
Room: TBD
Date Range: 1/21/2026 - 5/12/2026