COML 3731 - The Refusal of Work

(crosslisted) AMST 3731, ENGL 3931
(CA-AS)

Fall. 4 credits.

B. Maxwell.

Critical reflection on the refusal of work, including but not limited to: non-cooperation with routines of production and/or reproduction (among which, strikes, sexual and otherwise),the right to laziness, malingering, shirking, doggin’ it, “not understanding,” sabotage, pilferage, “calling in well,” desertion (a.k.a. quitting) and other attempts to remain human within modernity’s regime of coerced labor. We will also attempt to understand how this regime was installed, and its necessary entanglement with private property. We’ll take up literature, film, historiography, and theory.