The first module of this course introduces the pairing of university and abolition studies, charting a path for understanding the possibilities of education and study that live beyond our current institutional conceptions of colleges and universities. The main readings for this first module are two chapters from Stefano Harney and Fred Moten’s 2013 The Undercommons: Fugitive Study and Black Planning, followed by a 2016 article by Robin D.G. Kelley reflecting on academia’s response to the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Supplemental to this are two optional readings that elaborate on these themes. Abolition University Studies: An Invitation outlines the scope of this growing field of work, and Refusing the University centers the university as institutional appendage of the settler colonial state.