Caliban & the Witch Reading Group

Full Tuition: $200 — Scholarship Options in Drop-Down Menu

[Please note that for the Anti-Capitalism Summer School courses, we can only offer ONE full-scholarship per person who needs one. If you would like to take more than one course at the full scholarship level, please sign up for only one, and email us to be added to the scholarship waitlist for other courses: nightschoolbar@gmail.com]

Instructor: Andrews | 4 Meetings | Sundays July 9-30 | 2:00-3:30 PM ET ONLINE

Witch hunts, which targeted women, intensified across Europe at the same time as the origin of capitalism. Why? The same strategy of the witch hunt was used to dispossess colonized people of their lands and justify chattel slavery. What does gender have to do with capitalism and how does it intersect with colonialism and enslavement? Over the course of five weeks, we’ll read Silvia Federici’s major intervention in anti-capitalist thinking: Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation. We’ll read to learn about how the degradation of women has been central to the expansion of capitalism across the globe, and how the “feminization of labor” has exacerbated inequality. From AK Press: “Caliban and the Witch is a history of the body in the transition to capitalism. Moving from the peasant revolts of the late Middle Ages to the witch-hunts and the rise of mechanical philosophy, Federici investigates the capitalist rationalization of social reproduction. She shows how the battle against the rebel body and mind are essential conditions for the development of labor power and self-ownership, two central principles of modern social organization.”

Classes are recorded to allow for students to participate asynchronously. If you want to take a class but cannot make the class time, sign up for the asynchronous audit option to follow along on your own. Recordings are password protected and will only be available for the duration of the class and two weeks after it ends.

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All tuition goes to paying instructors and staff a living wage. We encourage you to pick the payment tier that corresponds with your needs, but ask that you please consider our commitment to fair labor practices when doing so. We are currently able to offer three full scholarships per class, and one full scholarship per person per term. If the scholarship tier you need is sold out or you would like to pay tuition on an installment basis, please email us directly, and we will work with you.

If at any point up to 48 hours before your first class session you realize you will be unable to take the class, please email us and we will reallocate your funds to a future class, to another student’s scholarship, or refund it. After classes begin, we are only able to make partial refunds and adjustments.