HNUH218R

Street names and museum exhibits are being renamed in Europe to erase the ghosts of their colonial history. Yet, this speaks of the colonial "era" as the past, when in fact it is very much our present. The economic principle driving colonialism--capitalism--encouraged an insatiable appetite for territorial acquisition, human bondage, and destruction that stole wealth, life, and joy from racialized "others" to fuel European development. We maintain and further these thefts, oppressions, and exploitations through our purchasing habits and justify them through cultural ideas and ignorance. What would it mean to undo these oppressions? What must we understand to begin this process? This course surveys colonial capitalism and its legacies in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa to explore how history informs the present robbing of the Global South for the Global North's development, as well as pathways towards resistance and reconciliation.