Debt Threats: Feminist and Anti-Racist Approaches to Economic Justice [6-weeks, $250 Suggested]

Instructor: Madden | Sundays, September 25-October 30 | 7:00-9:00 PM ET

Taking on debt in college orients students towards a supposedly “better future.” But what happens to those who are unable to access these better futures? Modern life is built and based on debt and many people are familiar with the need to use debt to access basic life necessities. Debt is a topic that makes news headlines regularly: organizers were successful in pushing the Biden administration to eliminate some student debt, debt is hampering access to medical care, and the national debt rises. Debt is deepening inequalities and while it has been a focus for scholars of economics, it is also increasingly a concern for those who study US culture. In this class, we marshal recent scholarship from the humanities to understand how debt functions, whom it fails, and what it says about economic inequality and its relationship to race and gender in the contemporary US. We will work together to understand the moral charge of debt and we ask how ideas about personal responsibility circulate. The 6-week class begins with an introduction to racial capitalism so that we can understand debt in historical context. The remaining 5 weeks focus on different forms of debt: student debt, reparations for Black Americans, medical debt, housing debt, and climate debt. Throughout the class, we work together to imagine alternatives to the current debt system. Writers will include Tressie McMillan Cottom, Eli Clare, Marta Russell, Andrew Ross, Kiese Laymon, Dean Spade, William Darity and Kirsten Mullen, Lucí Cavallero and Verónica Gago, Olúfémi O. Táíwò, and debt resistance groups Strike Debt and Debt Collective.

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For each class, four (4) full tuition scholarships and five (5) 80% tuition scholarships are available. Due to limited scholarship funds, we are currently only able to offer one class per term at the full scholarship level to any individual student—if you need a full scholarship, please sign up for the class you most want to take and email us to waitlist for any additional classes. We will add you when funds become available. Direct student donations are a crucial aspect of our funding model, and without them, we are not able to pay instructors 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. 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.