Skip to main content

The Sawyer Seminar on Capitalism and Comparative Racialization is a yearlong program of lectures and discussion groups designed to bring scholars together to explore the relationship between race and capitalism in the modern world. How is “race” a product of capitalism? How does the world’s taxonomy of “races” change according to capitalism’s changing needs? How does “race” shape the operations and ideology of capitalism? We tackle these questions not only by engaging cutting-edge theories of race and capital, but also by testing them against historical cases in the United States, the Philippines, Brazil, and South Africa. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and spearheaded by WISIR, the Sawyer Seminar receives additional support from the Simpson Center for the Humanities, the Solomon Katz Endowment, the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies, the Graduate School, and the College of Arts and Sciences.

Autumn 2018