An English course being taught at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst next semester will instruct students about “Transgender Marxism.”
The course description describes “Transgender Marxism” as “one of the most promising areas of development in Trans Studies.” The course is called “Transgender Marxism: Theories, Debates, Cultural Productions.” It is listed as one of the university’s graduate-level English courses.
Using a form of intersectionality, students of “Transgender Marxism” will examine how Marxism can influence a conception of gender identity.
“We will address classic areas in Marxist thought — such as production/reproduction, capital accumulation, extractivism, the commodity-form, and fetishism — as well as more vanguard areas of the field – such as metabolic rift theory and eco-socialism – alongside major LGBTQIA movements, movements for racial justice, sex workers’ rights, industrial labor and workplace struggles, health activism, land struggles, mutual aid, and immigrant rights,” the description says.
The listed faculty for “Transgender Marxism” is Jordy Rosenberg, an English professor at UMass Amherst. Rosenberg is a self-identified transgender man.
Rosenberg’s course is not the only one at UMass Amherst that combines Marxist thought with gender theory.
As Campus Reform reported a few months ago, UMass Amherst’s Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department offered students a course this fall called “Geographies of the ‘Imaginaire’: Blackness, Worldmakings & Intersectional Futures.” The course uses “the rich tradition of transnational Black feminist and queer Marxist theorizing.”
Next spring, Smith College, also in western Massachusetts near UMass Amherst, will offer a course on “Marxist Feminism.” The course begins with the “simple insight” that “capitalism relies on the class politics of unpaid, reproductive ‘women’s work.’”
Meanwhile, Cornell University plans to offer a course on “Queer Marxism” next spring, which seeks to bridge the divide between Marxist thought and queer theory.
“While queer studies emerged in part as a rejection of Marxism’s totalizing approach and Marxists have criticized the queer emphasis on individuals, this seminar explores the potential of bringing the two fields together,” the description says.
Campus Reform contacted the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Jordy Rosenberg for comment, asking what they hope students will get from the course.
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
