2020-2021 Catalog

ENGL 316 Literatures of Primitive Accumulation

This course studies the relationship between late medieval and Renaissance literature and what Karl Marx called “primitive accumulation,” the production of a system for enhancing the emergent European capitalist economy by dispossessing vulnerable populations across the globe. From land enclosure and privatization to colonialism and slavery, primitive accumulation made--and continues to make--the world we live in. We will read key works in Marxist theory, along with literary and historical texts by authors such as Christopher Columbus, Thomas More, Bartolomé de las Casas, Edmund Spenser, and William Shakespeare, in order to study representations of race, economy, and environmental extraction in the fictions that some early modern Europeans told about their role in a new global society.

Major Requirement Met: Group I

Credits

4 units

Prerequisite

One 200-level English class

Core Requirements Met

  • Global Connections
  • Pre-1800