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 fo d.loick@uva.nl