Course Description
Summary
Let us consider Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky's October 1917 curse upon moderate socialists resisting the ongoing Bolshevik coup d'etat: "You are pitiful, isolated individuals. You are bankrupts. Your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on—into the dustbin of history!” In this course, we find our own way into the "dustbin of history" in search of things--ideas, artifacts, world orders, utopian experiments, economic blueprints, elusive possibilities, and roads not taken--that might be worth salvaging. We inquire how these bygone phenomena emerged, took shape, gained more or less momentum, and then were crushed underfoot, disappeared, imploded, or exploded. Course work includes weekly write-ups, collaborations, and a culminating project (a podcast or something similar).
This class will include a mixture of in-person and zoom class meetings.
