Sociology 185S

Winter, 2012

Professor Howard Winant

Teaching Assistant: Jonathan Gomez

Time: TTh 1100AM-1215PM

Place: HSSB 1773

Sections:

49718            Wed, 5:00pm - 5:50pm HSSB 1227 

49726            Wed, 6:00pm - 6:50pm HSSB 1227

49726            Wed, 7:00pm - 7:50pm HSSB 1227

Winant email: hwinant@soc.ucsb.edu

Winant's office hours: Social Sciences 3308: Tues, 100-300PM

Gomez email: jdgomez@umail.ucsb.edu

Gomez office hours: TBA

 Special Topics in Sociological Theory:

THE SOCIOLOGY OF SLAVERY

INTRODUCTION

Slavery shaped the modern world: producing capitalism through "primitive accumulation," generating our models of labor, citizenship, and freedom as well as our ideas about marriage, childhood, and punishment.  In many ways slavery shaped our concepts of self and identity as well.  Because slavery is so large a topic, and so primordially grounded in human existence -- certainly predating recorded history for example -- it is not possible to address it comprehensively.  Although we take note of slavery's global and ubiquitous qualities (in other words slavery exists everywhere), and although we recognize that slavery is transhistorical (it predates recorded history and continues in the present on a large scale), in this course we emphasize African slavery in the Americas, the Atlantic slave system that shaped the modern world, abolitionism, and the legacies of slavery that continue into the present day. 

As the preeminent sociologist, historian, and antiracist activist W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in 1917:

When we speak of modern African slavery we think of modern slavery as a survival of ancient slavery.  But it was not.  The cleft between the two was absolute.  Modern slavery was the beginning of the modern labor problem, and must be looked at and interpreted from that point of view unless we would lose ourselves in an altogether false analogy.  Modern world commerce, modern imperialism, the modern factory system and the modern labor problem began with the African slave trade.  The first modern method of securing labor on a wide commercial scale and primarily for profit was inaugurated in the middle of the 15th century and in the commerce between Africa and America.  Through the slave trade Africa lost at least 100,000,000 human beings, with all the attendant misery and economic and social disorganization.  The survivors of this wholesale rape became a great international laboring force in America on which the modern capitalistic movement has been built, and out of which modern labor problems have arisen ("The Negro's Fatherland" [1917]. In David Levering Lewis, ed. W.E.B. Du Bois: A Reader. (New York: Holt, 1995, 653).

Even this passage, for all its large scope, does not fully grasp the abysmal enormity of African slavery in the Western hemisphere and beyond. Nor does Du Bois do more than recognize the existence of other slavery systems ("ancient slavery").  Still, here as elsewhere, Du Bois accurately locates African slavery as the foundation upon which American society -- and many respects the modern world-system -- was constructed.  Enslaved black hands built the White House and the US Capitol, for example.

THE LEGACY OF SLAVERY

What has slavery to do with present-day society, in the US and elsewhere?  As noted, slavery lives on, and indeed thrives, in ways that are not entirely different from its earlier forms: kidnapping, confinement, chattelization of human bodies and souls.  The heritability of slave status also continues to some extent.  We address contemporary slavery in the last section of the course, notably in the book by Kevin Bales, DISPOSABLE PEOPLE.

But slavery lives on in another sense as well, in a large number of crucial social structures, institutions, and ideas. 

A central example of this is contemporary RACISM.  It is notable that the descendants of enslaved Africans remain to a large extent the least "free," the most impoverished and confined (incarcerated or ghettoized) members of US society.  (At the same time, the only deep sense of "freedom" that we have is rooted in struggles to end slavery.) In that framework of racism we must also include Native Americans, whose early experience of enslavement (notably in Latin America) ranks among the leading genocides in world history, and whose dispossession, deracination, and confinement also profoundly intersects with slavery.  Slavery has shaped the mestizo origins of many Latin@s both in the US and throughout the hemisphere.  Super-exploited labor and gang labor (quasi-slavery) shaped the earlier generations of Asian immigrants to the US, and are still commonplace in the downtown sweatshops of today.  Many immigrants today -- especially those of color -- are "out of status" and therefore in some sense fugitive slaves: rightsless, "underground," living a "bare life."  Nor were even whites ever "free": European enslavement was an early massive phenomenon in the Americas.  The form it took -- debt peonage -- lives on today in the form of the quasi-racial social category "white trash," and in the indebted impoverishment or near impoverishment (subprime crisis, anybody?) of tens of millions of working-class whites. 

The legacy of slavery also structures the LABOR-SYSTEM, where workers are in essence rented slaves rather than owned, "employed" (i.e. alienated) labor whose bodies are hired by capital rather than its property. In other words we are "free" labor except when we are actually working.  Slavery also continues to operate in the social relationships we designate as the SEX/GENDER SYSTEM, which until quite recently chattelized women explicitly (restricting their political and property rights for example, and indeed all but designating them as the property of their fathers or husbands); these relationships continue today in less overt form, enshrined in family and welfare law as well as in sex roles, common sense, TV ads, everyday language, and so on.

Very tellingly, the legacy of slavery lives on in the system of SOCIAL CONTROL, in the system of Punishment and Social Structure (that's the title of a 1939 book by Frankfurt School sociologists Georg Rusche and Otto Kirchheimer) that remains relevant today.  Of course, the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution explicitly recognizes imprisonment as a legal form of slavery.  Such American phenomena as vigilante violence, the Klan, lynching, and "gun rights," all trace back to the slave patrol system in the antebellum South, where white workers and peasants were deputized to apprehend and assault blacks on sight.

Finally, the legacy of slavery inhabits the phenomenon of ABOLITIONISM, the only truly revolutionary (and the only truly democratic) social movement in US history.  Abolitionism was a global phenomenon, not just a US one, and remains so. In the US abolitionism was inspired and largely led by slaves and former slaves themselves.  It became an extremely broad freedom movement that included armed insurgents, religious refusers, early feminists, "free" workers, and even some "enlightened" capitalists.  As a popular alliance, abolitionism still has a lot to teach us.

GETTING STARTED

Obviously in these brief introductory remarks we can only touch upon some of the most intriguing aspects of slavery and its continuing role in social life.  But in this course -- with its orientation to sociological theory -- we explore these and other aspects of slavery as problems that shape our society and that still overlap with contemporary experience and social structure.  We also consider the topic in respect to its presumptive opposite: the sociology of liberation and freedom. 

Welcome!

REQUIRED READING

Kevin Bales, DISPOSABLE PEOPLE: NEW SLAVERY IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY. Berkeley: UC Press, 2004.

Davis, Angela Y. ABOLITION DEMOCRACY: BEYOND EMPIRE, PRISONS, AND TORTURE.  New York, Seven Stories Press, 2005.

George Rawick, FROM SUNDOWN TO SUNUP: THE MAKING OF THE BLACK COMMUNITY. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1973.

Selections from: Stanley Engerman et al, eds. SLAVERY. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Occasional additional resources (readings, videos, website links, etc.) that are posted on GauchoSpace.

Note: Assigned books are on 2-hr reserve at the Davidson Library.  They are available for purchase at the UCEN and IV Bookstores (buy them quickly, because they never order enough). They may also be ordered on line (sometimes at a discount) at http://bigwords.com or http://www.textbooks.com, or at other online outlets of your choice.  (Please note: I am not recommending Amazon.com, which is still resisting paying California state taxes and therefore not contributing to the UC system, parks, freeways, health care, etc.).

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Attendance, Study, Participation: You will not do well in this course if you do not attend regularly and engage with the material. Attendance is taken by means of a sign-up sheet. Class attendance and participation account for 10% of the final grade. Failure to study or attend class will result in poor grades, as surely as night follows day.

Since slavery, race and racism, and also gender and sexism, are highly emotional topics, students sometimes feel uncertain about saying what is on their minds. They wonder if what they think and feel is "correct" and whether they might offend others. It's logical to feel this way, but it's also important to feel safe enough to speak in class. In more than 30 years of teaching in this general area I have rarely encountered an intentional effort by a student to offend anyone else. Therefore I make the following commitment to you: I will protect your right to say anything, even if it is unpopular, so long as you are not making a deliberate effort to put down anyone else. This guarantee is designed to facilitate discussion of sensitive topics in class.

Written Work: In this class there are a short essay assignment, a take-home midterm exam, and a final research paper. Written work should always be word-processed and double-spaced, with adequate margins. Always keep a copy of all the work you turn in, preferably on a disk as well as in printed form. Assigned reading is due in class on the date listed (see “Schedule of Classes,” below).

The short essay assignment is a response to the following prompt:

GEORGE RAWICK SAYS: "MORE THAN THE WHIP OF THE MASTER IS REQUIRED TO MAKE A SLAVE WORK REGULARLY. THERE MUST BE AN INTEGRAL SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF WORK AND THE CONSEQUENT INTERNALIZATION OF VALUES AND ATTITUDES CONDUCIVE TO WORK, AN INTERNALIZATION THAT COMES FROM AND REINFORCES TRADITIONS OF DAILY, STEADY, REGULAR WORK ON A COOPERATIVE BASIS, BUT WITH NEED AND ROOM FOR INDIVIDUAL INITIATIVE" (Rawick 1972, 27).

DISCUSS AND INTERPRET THIS PASSAGE.  EXPLORE SOME OF THE DETAILS OF THE PROCESSES TO RAWICK IS REFERRING: ENSLAVEMENT ITSELF, THE WHIP, SOCIAL ORGANIZATION, VALUES, TRADITIONS, AND COOPERATION...  THERE ARE MANY POSSIBLE TOPICS HERE: THE NATURE OF WORK, COERCION OF WORKERS, WORK-DISCIPLINE, COOPERATION VS. CONFLICT IN THE WORKPLACE, "SOLIDARITY" AMONG WORKERS/SLAVES, AND INITIATIVE/CREATIVITY/FREEDOM IN WORK.  YOU SHOULD FEEL FREE TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN IDEAS ABOUT THIS TEXT, BUT BE SURE TO RELATE THEM BACK TO SLAVERY AND THE TEXT.

Your paper should be an essay of around 4-5 pp. (max: 1250 words), double-spaced, with adequate margins. The short essay assignment is due in class in Week 3 of class, on Thursday, Jan 26.

The mid-term exam is a take-home. Based on your readings of the Rawick text, and also that part of the Engerman et al text assigned up to the midpoint of the course, you will answer two essay questions from a list of five. Each essay is 4-5 typed or word-processed, double-spaced pages (max: 1250 words each) in length. The exam questions will be available on GauchoSpace on Tuesday, Feb 2 (Week 4 of class); the exam will be due in class on Tuesday Feb 14 (Week 6 of class).

The final is not an exam but a written paper based on your studies throughout the course. It should be 10-12 pages (max: 500 words), double-spaced, with adequate margins.  The assignment is as follows:

BALES DISTINGUISHES BETWEEN "OLD SLAVERY" AND "NEW SLAVERY" IN VARIOUS WAYS.  FOR EXAMPLE, HE CONTRASTS THE HIGH MONEY VALUE OF SLAVES IN THE US SOUTH WITH THE LOW MONEY VALUE OF SLAVES TODAY, WHOM HE CALLS "DISPOSABLE PEOPLE."  HE NOTES THAT RACE (AND IN SOME WAYS ETHNICITY TOO) WERE KEY DIMENSIONS OF "OLD SLAVERY" IN THE US SOUTH, WHILE IN "NEW SLAVERY" RACE AND ETHNICITY ARE LESS CENTRAL. IN MANY OTHER WAYS AS WELL, BALES STRESSES THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "OLD" AND "NEW" SLAVERY.

DISCUSS AND INTERPRET THIS DISTINCTION. CONSIDER SUCH QUESTIONS AS: WHAT ARE THE SOURCES OF THESE DFFERENCES BETWEEN "OLD" AND "NEW" SLAVERY? IF THERE ARE DIFFERENCES, ARE THERE ALSO CONTINUITIES BETWEEN THE TWO TYPES?  WHAT ARE THESE CONTINUITIES AND WHAT DO THEY REVEAL ABOUT THE NATURE OF SLAVERY?  IN YOUR PAPER, CONSIDER SUCH QUESTIONS AS: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO "OWN" ANOTHER PERSON? WHAT IS IT THAT IS "OWNED": BODY? MIND? SOUL? HOW CENTRAL IS LABOR TO SLAVERY? HOW CENTRAL IS SEX/GENDER TO SLAVERY? WHAT IS THE PLACE OF POWER IN THE MASTER-SLAVE RELATIONSHIP?  DOES THE SLAVE HAVE ANY POWER?  WHAT WAS THE ABOLITION OF "OLD" SLAVERY AND WHY DID IT COME ABOUT?  HOW DOES THAT ABOLITION COMPARE TO THE MODERN-DAY TASK OF THE ABOLITION OF "NEW" SLAVERY, WHICH BALES AND OTHERS ARE TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH?

Your paper is due at Professor Winant's office Tuesday, March 20, between 200 and 400PM. Include a self-addressed, stamped envelope ($1.00 stamp) with your final paper.

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When and How to Cite a Text

You will be citing text in all your written assignments for this class. Do so as follows:

When: Not only when you quote, but when you paraphrase or draw an idea from a text, you must cite the source.

How: Place the citation, consisting of the author's last name, the year of publication, and the page number, in parenthesis at the appropriate point in your essay. For instance: (Bales 2004, 17), (Murray 2001, 190), or (Winant 2011). Then at the end of the paper, list the work cited, as follows:

For a book: Kevin Bales, DISPOSABLE PEOPLE: NEW SLAVERY IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY. Berkeley: UC Press, 2004.

For an article: David Murray, "The Cuban Slave Trade," in Stanley Engerman et al. eds. SLAVERY. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

For an internet site: Winant, Howard. "Durban, Globalization, and the World After 9/11: Toward a New Politics." http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/winant/WCAR-WTO_essay.html. Viewed Dec. 21, 2011.

Do the same thing with all your citations. If you use additional sources, treat them the same way. If you repeat sources, you don’t have to repeat the whole citation in the bibliography.

Please be aware that Prof. Winant requires adequate citation of sources: books, articles, internet-based..., there are no exceptions. You have been warned. He takes plagiarism very seriously. If you do not produce your own material, you will not only fail the class, but you will also be subject to university disciplinary action, which could include suspension.

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GRADING RULES, LATE AND INCOMPLETE ASSIGNMENTS

Assignments are afforded the following percentages of the final grade:

Attendance: 10%

Short essay assignment: 20%

Mid-Term Exam: 30%

Final Paper: 40%

Attendance is taken in all classes by means of a sign-in sheet.

Failure to complete any assignment gets you a 0% on that assignment. Turning in an assignment late gets you one grade-level reduction on that assignment (e.g., from A- to B+), unless other arrangements are made.

Incompletes (“I” grades) will not be given except by written arrangement with the instructor

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SCHEDULE OF CLASSES

Week 1

Tues, Jan 10

Introduction to the course; discussion of requirements, readings, etc. Discussion focuses on the issues and themes presented in the "Introduction" to the syllabus, above.

Thurs, Jan 12

Rawick xiii-29

Du Bois "The Black Worker" -- available on GauchoSpace

Week 2

Tues, Jan 17

Rawick 30-76

Thurs, Jan 19

Rawick 77-124

Week 3

Tues, Jan 24

Rawick 125-178

Thurs, Jan 26

No assigned reading

"SHORT ESSAY ASSIGNMENT" DUE IN CLASS

Week 4

Tues, Jan 31

Davis 1-48

Thurs, Feb 2

Davis 49-132

MIDTERM EXAM QUESTIONS AVAILBLE ON GAUCHOSPACE

Week 5

Tuesday, Feb 7

From Engerman et al Section I, "Meaning":

--Read as extensively as you can, but required readings are these:

"Introduction," 1, 2, 3, 14, 15, 16, 22

Thursday, Feb 9

From Engerman et al Section II, "The Origins and Methods of Enslavement":

--Required: "Introduction," 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35

Week 6

Tues, Feb 14

No reading assignment. Work on your midterm exam

MIDTERM EXAM DUE IN CLASS

Thurs, Feb 16

From Engerman et al Sections III and IV, "Slave Laws" and "The Slave Trade":

--Required: both "Introductions," 45, 48, 52, 53, 54, 58, 59, 60, 63, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 74, 78, 81, 82, 86, 87

Week 7

Tues, Feb 21

From Engerman et al Sections V and VI, "The Experience of Slavery", and "Resistance"

--Required: both "Introductions," 92, 94, 98, 99, 100, 102, 106, 108, 111, 115,  118, 119, 123, 124, 128, 130, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 140,141,142, 144,145

Thursday, Feb 23

From Engerman et al Sections VII and VIII, "Economics and Demography", and "Abolition and Emancipation"

--Required: both "Introductions," 150, 151, 153, 156, 157, 159, 160, 161, 162,  153, 165, 166, 170,  173, 174, 180, 181, 182,  183, 184, 185, 186

Week 8

Tues, Feb 28

Bales 1-33

Thurs, March 1

Bales 34-79

Week 9

Tues, March 6

Bales 80-148

Thurs, March 8

Bales 149-194

Week 10

Tues, March 13

Bales 195-264 (also check out the appendices)

Thurs, March 15

No Reading Assignment; Work on your Final Exam

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Tues, March 20

FINAL PAPER DUE AT PROF. WINANT'S OFFICE, SSMS 3308, BETWEEN 1200 AND 200PM. Please include a SASE ($1.00 stamp) with your paper.