Engaging with this year’s theme of “Anti-Bodies” the round table will explore the potentialities, and the limitations, of abolitionist politics within the university. The anti-capitalist and anti-racist demands for transformative justice of abolitionism seeks to recognize and redress the ongoing social consequences of the university’s historical provenance within the practices of settler colonialism, enslavement, and monopoly capital.

Bringing together several scholars whose work sits at the intersection of radical history, decolonial critique, and critical university studies, the round table will ask us to consider questions such as: What does it mean to take an abolitionist approach to the university? What gets lost if we don’t see the university from the perspective of abolitionism? And what is to be gained?

The session will also prompt discussants to respond to questions concerning the practical realization of abolitionism in the university today, for instance exploring: What unique challenges does the terrain of an institution like the university present, when compared with other more repressive state apparatuses subjected to abolitionist critique such as prisons and policing? What pitfalls await demands for abolition in the wake of the widespread austerity measures sweeping higher education since the outbreak of COVID-19? How can we push to realize university abolition in practical terms, through our labor as instructors, faculty members, advisors, graduate students, and scholars?

Roopika Risam is Chair of Secondary and Higher Education and Associate Professor of Education and English at Salem State University. Prof. Risam will approach the topic through her experience developing collaborative digital interventions like Torn Apart/Separados through the Mobilized Humanities (MH), and will discuss possibilities for enacting abolitionist digital pedagogies in the classroom.

Abigail Boggs is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Wesleyan University. Prof. Boggs will respond to these questions in light of her work with the Abolition University Project, and as a co-author of the piece, “Abolitionist University Studies: An Invitation,” and will discuss feminist and queer approaches to critical university studies.

Vineeta Singh is Assistant Teaching Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Prof. Singh will reflect upon her time as a postdoctoral fellow for The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation at the College of William & Mary, and share how her research in black feminist thought and critical university studies inform her classroom practice.

To engage these questions, the round table discussants will each present brief prepared remarks designed to spur discussion in-common with each other (45min), before the conversation is opened up for participation from the audience (45 min). These remarks will be prepared in response to a group of shared readings and materials found below.

Materials have been grouped thematically, so that attendees might pursue whichever area of discussion interests them most. However, conference participants attending the round table are encouraged to explore at least one document from each set of resources as primers beforehand.

NOTE Access to some materials may require institutional log-in. If you have trouble gaining access to any of the readings please contact the session chair, Steve Gotzler.

The University, the end?

• “Abolitionist University Studies: An Invitation” — Abigail Boggs, Eli Meyerhoff, Nick Mitchell, and Zach Schwartz-Weinstein
• “the university: last words” — Fred Moten and Stefano Harney
  • Virtual Conversation w/ Fred Moten and Stefano Harvey for FUC

Abolition and Decolonization

• “Refusing the University” — Sandy Grande
• “Decolonization is not a metaphor” — Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang
• “Slavery is a Metaphor: A Critical Commentary on Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s ‘Decolonization is not a metaphor’” - Tapji Garba and Sara-Maria Sorentino

Abolitionist Pedagogies

• “Abolitionist Teaching and the Future of Our Schools” - A conversation with Bettina Love, Gholdy Muhammad, Dena Simmons and Brian Jones
• “Against Cop Shit” — Jeffrey Moro
• The Standing Rock Syllabus — NYC Stands With Standing Rock