In this research colloquium, we will a.) read together and discuss contemporary literature in abolitionism, b.) present our own current research on abolitionist topics, c.) invite international guests to present their research, especially to facilitate an interdisciplinary and international dialogue. To be put on the list, please email Daniel d.loick at uva.nl. Because the seminar is a collaborative project, regular attendance is expected.

And this is the program for next semester: 

Fall/Winter 2026/27
All seminars are 17.00-19.00 h. Room tbc.

10 September 2026. Resistance in Cedric Robinson

To open this year’s Abolition Democracies Seminar, we turn to one of the central figures of the Black radical tradition: Cedric Robinson. We will be reading from his landmark Black Marxism, as well as the less familiar but equally striking An Anthropology of Marxism. In these works, Robinson pursues a central argument: that the dominant Marxist account of history is too narrow to explain different kinds of resistance movements. By reconstructing traditions of opposition that Marx’s taxonomy cannot see - and that in fact precede and exceed it- Robinson demonstrates that the impulse toward liberation is older, deeper, and more diverse than the story of capitalism and the industrial proletariat allows. The two chapters selected for this session are a clear statement of that recovered lineage: one tracing it in the European past, the other in the Black diaspora. Together they reframe radical politics not as something capitalism produced but as something that has repeatedly asserted itself against any form of domination. 

Readings: From An Anthropology of Marxism: Chapter 2 “The Social Origins of Materialism and Socialism” 

In this chapter, Robinson locates the origins of socialism centuries before industrial capitalism, in movements the Marxist timeline dismisses as premodern. From Black Marxism, Chapter 7: "The Nature of the Black Radical Tradition” Robinson argues that Black resistance drew on a collective consciousness carried out of Africa - the preservation of "the collective being, the ontological totality” - and that in doing so it refuses Marxism's categories: proletarian vanguardism, the universality of class, and the claim that capitalism could remake consciousness from the ground up.

Recommended alongside: 

Quan, Foreword to An Anthropology of Marxism. Situates the book and its thesis that the socialist impulse predates Marx and will outlast Marxism, linking it to racial capitalism and the Black Radical Tradition.

Gordon, Preface to An Anthropology of Marxism. Frames Robinson's method and the genealogy of resistance that Marx wrote out of socialism's history.

Robinson's Preface to the 2000 Edition of Black Marxism. On two key concepts: racial capitalism and the Black Radical Tradition. 

15 October 2026: The Anti-Trans Backlash and the Politics of Safety

We will be reading two texts on the connections between carcerality and the Anti-Trans-backlash. The first text is chapter 2 ''Flying under the Radar'' from Going Stealth: Transgender Politics and U.S. Surveillance Practices (2019) by Toby Beauchamp on the relation of state practices of surveillance and transgender bodies. The text examines how discourses that determine bodies as dangerous threats to natural security and public safety function as leverage for state efforts to increase surveillance measures. 

The second text is part one ''The Carceral Politics of the Anti-Trans Backlash" of the book Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti-Trans Backlash (2026) by S. Lamble. This chapter illustrates anti-trans feminist debates and organising against legal interventions for trans rights in Britain and the carceral safety politics that animate them. Together, the two texts provide a framework to talk about defining trans bodies as dangerous bodies through state interventions on behalf of a promise for public safety. 

12 November 2026: Abolition, pro and against

The French sociologst Loic Wacqant recently published a much discussed scathing polemic against abolitionism in the journal New Left Review. His essay offer a good occasion to take stock of abolitionism's core commitments and methods and the evaluate them critically. We will read and discuss his critique alongside a recent abolitionist commentary, "How not to abolish ICE" by Harsha Walia, published in the Boston Review. 

3 December 2026: William I. Robinson: Epochal Crisis. The Exhaustion of Global Capitalism

In his new study "Epochal Crisis", William I. Robinson presents a 'big picture' analysis of the unprecedented global crisis. Robinson synthesizes the different economic, social, political, military, and ecological dimensions of the crisis, applying his theory of global capitalism to elucidate these multidimensional and interconnected aspects. Addressing urgent issues such as economic stagnation, runaway financial speculation, unprecedented social inequalities, political conflict, expanding wars, and the threat to the biosphere, he illustrates how these different dimensions relate to one another and stem from the underlying contradictions of a global system spiralling out of control. We will be reading chapter 2, "Crisis of Social Reproduction", which deals with the production of surplus populations and the creation of a global police state, among other things. 

14 January 2027: The Dutch Abolitionist Tradition

For this session, we will invite a guest to speak to us about the rich history of Abolitionism in the Netherlands. More information to follow. 

To be put on the list and receive the zoom link for hybrid sessions, please email Daniel d.loick at uva.nl. 

Program Fall & Winter 2026

10 September (alle sessies zijn van 17.00-19.00)
15 October
12 November 
3 December
14 January

Program Spring 2026

Abolition Democracies Program, Semester 2, 2025/26

All seminars begin at 17.00 h. Room tbc

19.2.: The History of Incarceration

In this session, we will critically interrogate the claim that the prison is a Modern institution by looking at ancient precursors of incarceration. We will read parts of Matthew Larsen and Mark Letteny's new book Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration. Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration traces a long history of carceral practices, considering ways in which the institution of prison has been fundamentally intertwined with issues of class, ethnicity, gender, and imperialism.

A free ebook is available here.

26.3.: Abolition and Disability Justice

Disability justice and prison abolition are two increasingly popular theories that overlap but whose intersection has rarely been explored in depth. In this session, we will discuss the overlaps between the abolitionist and disability justice struggles. We will be reading parts of Liat Ben-Moshe’s book Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition as well as the new People’s Guide to Abolition and Disability Justice by Katie Tastrom. 

16.4. Beyond Sanctuary (with special guest Veronika Zablotsky) 

The contributors to the new volume Beyond Sanctuary examine how the liberal democracies of the West recognize and include racial others through technologies of state power that promise but rarely grant sanctuary and refuge. Conceptualized at a time of resurgent white nationalism, this volume critically interrogates not only right-wing xenophobia but also the liberal ruse of asylum and its place in Western humanism. Drawing on the liberatory histories and countercartographies of migrant movements and the intellectual traditions of the Black radical tradition, Indigenous studies, postcolonial thought, and critical refugee studies, the contributors analyze the colonial-racial logics of humanitarian reason and its carceral geographies of camps and crossings. Whether analyzing guerrilla art projects that memorialize female migrants who died crossing the US-Mexico border, schools for undocumented students, housing solidarity movements in state-run camps in Greece, or transnational struggles for abolition, this collection foregrounds ideas and practices of fugitivity and freedom that refuse and reworld the West. We will read selected chapters and discuss them. The co-editor Veronika Zablotsky will be present. 

Veronika Zablotsky is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Freie Universität Berlin.

14.5. Abolitionist Writing Lab

This session will be an opportunity to pitch ideas and discuss early drafts for current work in abolitionist theory. Get in touch with us if you want to present an idea. 

June (concrete date tbd): Abolish Europe! Workshop and Panel discussion. 

Program 2025-26

Semester Program Abolition Democracies Seminar

All sessions are at 17.00-19.00 h in OMHP C 2.23

11 September 2025: Reading of Banu Bargu, "Disembodiment", selected chapters

16 October 2025 Presentation Safae El Khannoussi: "The Anthropometric Record: On Legal Branding And the Production of Social Death in the Postcolony"

 20 November 2025: Presentation Oscar Talbot + Reading of "Embracing ‘Abolition Ecology’: A Green Criminological Rejoinder" by Stephens-Griffin

18 December 2025: Presentation Merel Raats: 'Anarchiving: Mad Dutch Histories' + Reading of Achille Mbembe, 'The Power of the Archive and Its Limit' + Brian Massumi, "Working Principles"

 29.1.: Presentations tbc

Program 2024-25

In the first semester of the 2025/26 academic year, the Abolition Democracies seminar will focus on presentations of the work in progress of seminar members. If you want to participate in the seminar or present your own work, please get in touch with Daniel (d.loick at uva.nl). The dates of our meetings are: 11.9., 16.10., 20.11., 18.12., 29.1., 17.-19.00 h.

Program 2024

12.3., OMHP A 009, Reading: Abolitionist Traditions in the Netherlands

- Willem de Haan, "Abolitionism and the Politics of Bad Conscience"

- Anouk de Koning, "Handled with Care"

- Background: Episode of "De Blauwe Familie" on YouTube: https://youtu.be/IQV7CdIkh5Y

- Exhibition: Justice Beyond Revenge in Rotterdam: https://www.tentrotterdam.nl/en/tentoonstelling/solo-exhibition-robert-glas/

26.3. OMHP A 009, Reading: Abolition in Rojava

- Abdullah Öcalan, "A Blueprint for a Democratic and Ecological Society"

- Abdullah Öcalan, "Democratic Confederalism"

- Background: Social Contract of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria: https://internationalistcommune.com/social-contract/

This session serves to organize a potential exchange with universities in Rojava. Information on this page: https://csua-paris.org/

9.4. OMHP C 2.17 Reading: Abolition and Antifascism

- Cedric Robinson, "Fascism and the Response of Black Radical Theorists"

- Nikhil Pal Singh, "The Afterlife of Fascism"

- Alberto Toscano, "The Returns of Racial Fascism"

23.4. OMHP C 0.23 Lecture by Alberto Toscano (Goldsmiths): The Shape of Fear: Racial Fascism and the Counterrevolutions of Property in W.E.B. Du Bois's Black Reconstruction (Alberto will join on Zoom)
Taking its cue from Amiri Baraka's claim that Black Reconstruction contains a theory of "racial fascism", this talk will try to reconstruct the key elements and arguments that comprise Du Bois's theory, with particular attention to how Du Bois accounted for the compromise between the plantocracy and northern capital after 1877 - and for Jim Crow as a functional 'regionalisation' of fascism in the USA - as well as for the psycho-political dynamics underlying the conscription of poor whites into racial fascism. The talk will also reflect on how Du Bois theorisation of racial fascism can be put into dialogue with later debates on the applicability of fascism to racial capitalism in the USA.

Alberto Toscano is Term Research Associate Professor at the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University and Co-Director of the Centre for Philosophy and Critical Theory at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the author of Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea (Verso, 2010; 2017, 2nd ed.), Cartographies of the Absolute (with Jeff Kinkle, Zero Books, 2015) and the co-editor of the 3-volume The SAGE Handbook of Marxism (with Sara Farris, Bev Skeggs and Svenja Bromberg, SAGE, 2022). His Terms of Order: Keywords for an Interregnum (Seagull) and Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism and the Politics of Crisis (Verso) were published last year. He is a member of the editorial board of the journal Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory and is series editor of The Italian List and Seagull Essays for Seagull Books.

7.5. OMHP C 0.23 Reading: Resisting Racial Capitalism

- Ida Danewid, Resisting Racial Capitalism, Introduction + ch 1

21.5. OMHP C 0.23, Decolonize Palestine (Reading or external speaker, tbd)

5-7.6.: ASCA Workshop: Resistance, Refusal, Fugitivity (https://asca.uva.nl/shared/subsites/amsterdam-institute-for-humanities-research/en/news/2024/01/asca-workshop.html)

18.6. OMHP A 008, Lecture by Ida Danewid (Sussex): Resisting Racial Capitalism: An Antipolitical Theory of Refusal (Ida will be on location)

What does freedom mean without, and despite, the state? Ida Danewid argues that state power is central to racial capitalism's violent regimes of extraction and accumulation. Tracing the global histories of four technologies of state violence: policing, bordering, wastelanding, and reproductive control, she excavates an antipolitical archive of anarchism that stretches from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to the borderlands of Europe, the poisoned landscape of Ogoniland, and the queer lifeworlds of Delhi. Thinking with a rich set of scholars, organisers, and otherworldy dreamers, Danewid theorises these modes of refusal as a utopian worldmaking project which seeks not just better ways of being governed, but an end to governance in its entirety. In a time where the state remains hegemonic across the Left–Right political spectrum, Resisting Racial Capitalism calls on us to dream bolder and better in order to (un)build the world anew.

Ida Danewid is a social and political theorist based in the Department of International Relations at the University of Sussex. Her research interests are in anticolonial and black radical thought, gender studies, and global political economy. Ida's work has previously appeared in European Journal of International Relations, International Political Sociology, Security Dialogue, and with the Black Mediterranean collective.

Program 2023-2024

5th October - Policing

• Brogden - Emergence of the Police - The Colonial Dimension
• Downes and Van Swaaningen - The Road to Dystopia? Changes in the Penal Climate of the Netherlands
• Neocleous - Policing the System of Needs: Hegel, Political Economy and the Police of the Market
• Mariame Kaba - Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police (or can also be found in We Do This 'Til We Free Us)

8th November - Surplus Populations

• Karl Marx, "The progressive production of a relative surplus population or industrial reserve army", in Capital vol 1, pp. 781-794
• Ruth Wilson Gilmore, "Crisis and Surplus", "The Four Surpluses", in Golden Gulag, pp. 54-86
• Joshua Clover, "Surplus Rebellions", in Riot. Strike. Riot, pp. 153-174
• Ian Shaw, Marv Waterstone, „A Planet of Surplus Life: Building Worlds Beyond Capitalism“, in: Antipode Vol. 53, No. 6 (2021), S. 1787-1806
• Neferti X M. Tediar, "A Global Enterprise: Waste", in Remaindered Life, pp. 23-48

6th December - Decolonial Perspectives on Abolition

• Aimé Césaire, "Discourse on Colonialism," in Discourse on Colonialism ; A Poetics of Anticolonialism. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000.
• Achille Mbembe, "Disenclosure" in Out of the Dark Night: Essays on Decolonization (New York: Colombia University Press, 2021): 42-89.
• Samer Abdelnour, “What Decolonizing Is Not,” Management 4 (2022): 81–82.
• Amade M'charek, "Harraga: Burning Borders, Navigating Colonialism," The Social Review 68 (2020): 418-434.
• Vanessa Thompson, "From the Black Mediterranean to Liberation," Geographica Helvetica 78 (2023): 99-104.

January (TBC)  - Event with Special Guest

All sessions will be hybrid. A meeting will take place in the PC Hoofthuis 2.14, 1700-2000. A zoom link will also be provided. If you are interested in receiving the texts and the zoom link, send an email do d.loick@uva.nl.