Course Notes for Monday October 26

I. Orientation

I'd like to start again with some free writing in response to a prompt from Payne's I've Got the Light of Freedom. Here's Ella Baker (quoted on p. 93):

“My basic sense of it has always been to get people to understand that in the long run they themselves are the only protection they have against violence or injustice . . . People have to be made to understand that they cannot look for salvation anywhere but themselves.”

Write in response, drawing on events and readings (and anything else) in the past week.

 

II. Payne's I've Got the Light of Freedom

Using the writing you've done as a launching pad, we'll now turn our attention to Payne's work. Here's the question I'd like to discuss "silently" on the board and then reflect on together:

What specific ideas or practices from the Freedom Struggle in Mississippi might we use for addressing the prison-industrial complex?

Here I'm hoping that we can draw out as many possible specifics from the chapters we read of Payne's work, trying to understand these in themselves but also how they might translate to the problem that Michelle Alexander framed for us last week. Remember that she ends her book by calling for a new social movement. How could the Freedom Struggle speak to this call? Here we might ask some of the following questions:

1. What exactly is the nature of the problem Alexander diagnoses? (Including critiques of Alexander)

2. How might this problem be addressed politically?

3. How could this political address be inspired by or stem from the Freedom Struggle?

4. What are the limits of the example as Payne describes it?

 

III. SNCC and Rankine, Tocqueville, and DuBois

After we've drawn out these examples, I'd like to turn to some comparative exercises. We'll break into small groups around three dimensions.

1. After Citizen: What does the example of SNCC contribute to our discussions of citizenship?

2. What is freedom? How might SNCC update or extend Tocqueville’s arts of freedom?

3. Does SNCC provide a basis for address the problems DuBois diagnoses, especially those stemming from basic inequalities?

 

IV. "Who Gives a Fuck About Tocqueville": Reflecting on What Political Theory Does

Now that we've discussed the specifics of Payne's argument, I'd like to steer the conversation more directly to overarching questions of what we're doing as political theorists. After I present a short essay, I'd like to consider these questions together:

1. How can historical examples inform or inspire our political visions (if at all)?

2. What would better help us to formulate and bring into being political goals?