C.L.R. James

This course will revolve around six controversial questions in the life and work of C.L.R. James. They are as follows: 1) James’s advocacy in the 1950s and 1960s of a “democratic nationalist” political program in the Caribbean; 2) James’s embededness in the very culture and way of life against which he struggled as a revolutionary socialist; 3) James’s many “adaptations” of Marxist theory to specific moments and contexts; 4) The nature of James’s anti-Stalinism and anti-communism; 5) James’s conception of the “autonomy” of black liberation struggles; 6) The basis for James’s positive assessments of U.S. society and political history.

Each of these questions will be exemplified in passages chosen by the instructor from James’s writings that the class will be expected to read and discuss. In addition to these relatively short passages, each class member will be asked to select one of James’s works, which will form the basis of oral presentations.

The twofold aim of the course is, first, to take a comprehensive look at James’s contributions to twentieth-century socialist thought and action, and second, to evaluate the relevance of James’s ideas to the problems we face in the early twenty-first century.

All common readings will be distributed to the class in photocopy form. Some of the works read for oral reports can be obtained by loan from the instructor. A few copies of the instructor’s recently published study, Urbane Revolutionary: C.L.R. James and the Struggle for a New Society (University Press of Mississippi, 2008), will be available for the purposes of class discussion.