In this course we will explore the relationship between love and politics, with a focus on the relationship between Indigenous and abolitionist movements and decolonial love. We will consider ways love—familial, romantic, patriotic—serves to perpetuate structures of colonialism and racial capitalism. As well, we will consider how these
same forms of love can serve, in anti-colonial and abolitionist struggles, to resist and/or replicate colonialism, capitalism, and racism, along with other forms of oppression. We will also grapple with what the term “decolonial love” means, looking to different formulations of it that range from Junot Díaz’s often-quoted formulation that popularized the term and that works within heterosexual romantic relationships, to Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s revision of his formulation, which queers it, and expands it to include land andthe more-than-human.
To anchor our investigations, we will consider contemporary texts (popular music, novels, short stories, memoir, poetry, films, videos), that centrally engage the topics of love, abolition, and colonialism from different sites and positionalities (Turtle Islander, Kanaka Maoli, Palestinian, queer, white settler, etc.). Questions we will take up include the following: How do various kinds of love structure or sustain heteropatriarchy, racial capitalism, and colonialism? How and under what conditions can love serve to defy, exceed, or provide alternatives to these structures and the institutions that sustain them? What are the interrelations between queer, abolitionist, and decolonial love? between Indigeneity and decolonial love? What problems and possibilities come
with using “decolonial” and “Indigenous” interchangeably and as a future horizon to strive for? Does exploring decolonial love and its possibilities require rethinking valorizations of monogamous heterosexual relationships? Are phrases such as “be mine” part of a colonial logic? Does decolonial love necessitate challenging understandings of human-non-human relationships to land, sky, waters, elements, and other-than-human beings, and how and why might doing so matter to creating decolonial futures? Are some genres and forms better suited to decolonial love than others, and why?
Key texts (tentative listing)
Books
Junot Díaz, This Is How You Lose Her
Laurel Flores Fantauzzo, My Heart Underwater
No’u Revilla, Ask the Brindled
Dean Spade, Love in a F-ed Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell, Together
Films
Elle-Máijá Apiniskim Tailfeathers, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open
Hany Abu-Assad, dir., Omar
Shorter works by authors including George Abraham and Sarah Aziza, Hala Alyan, Devin Atallah, James Baldwin, Patrisse Cullors, Walid Daqqa, Sarah Ihmoud, Fady Joudah, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Robin Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Joseph M. Pierce and SJ Normal, Shreerekha, Kim Tall Bear, Teresia Teaiwa, Haunani-Kay Trask, Aiko Yamashiro
Class requirements and procedures: 2 love letters of 750-1000 words each (100 points; 50 points each); a 3,750 page research essay (or, upon approval, a creative written project, 175 points) + proposal (20 points) + outline and bibliography (30 points); in-class activities, short assignments (25 points); a group presentation + annotated bibliography + discussion questions (50 points); 5 group journal entries of 350 words minimum (100 points; 20 points each).