Liberation Spring Semester ’14 Syllabus- Atlanta, GA Campus – Project South

March 26: Class I – Introduction to Decolonizing the South

Adjunct Faculty – Emery Wright

This course will provide an overview and analysis of the historical framework of colonization and how it can be manifested in contemporary society to maintain a level of control over people and specifically how it looks in the South. Attention will be given to the implications for a lack of awareness around colonization and group discussion will focus on how one can decolonize his/her own life, the role of the state in perpetuating the colonization process, and how to combat decolonization in every facet of society.  Deeper class dialogue will explore the roots of oppression and encourage the class to collectively formulate strategy and a structure for activism against colonization in the south. This introductory course will lay the groundwork for the remainder of the semester as broader topics are introduced and explored. (2 hrs)

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April 2: Class II – Struggles over the Sovereignty of the Body in the South

Adjunct Faculty – Stephanie Guilloud

This course will invite the student-participants to explore gender constructions as fundamental to colonialism and how sovereignty over the body in the context of the South plays a substantive role in the movement for liberation for all people. Key themes will examine the foundations of the binary, the role of the state, and agency around our bodies. The class will explore the question: What is the path to decolonizing body sovereignty? Student-participants will be exposed to the history of how the state and dominant culture renders and reinforces impotence in life-impacting decisions. Student-participants will further identify ways to confront power in this context. (2 hrs)

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April 9: Class III – Decolonizing health and healing in the South

Adjunct Faculty – Cara Page (to be confirmed)

This course will engage the students in discussion around topics associated with health and healing as it relates to subjects like food justice and healthcare access in the South, where social constructs like poverty lend to a lack of access to both. Other focus will connect to the role of the state in maintaining a colonized system and policies that work to victimize consumers and student-participants will be encouraged to identify ways to work against these circumstances through group activity. Another area of exploration will be the role of healers and how some traditional healing was suffocated by colonization and made to represent something entirely different than its original purposes. (2 hrs)

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April 16: Class IV – Decolonizing Labor and Migration in the South

Faculty – Salladin Muhammed

This course will effectively debunk the prominent myths around labor and migration in the South by bringing to light the racist and exploitive methods used by corporations and governments to manifest their agendas by manipulating the lives of workers. Students will gain insight into the development of institutional exploitation and the “justified” malevolence that it used to maintain order for the injustices and atrocities exacted. Much focus will be placed on the organizing tradition in the South and ways to forward the process of building solidarity to decolonize the normative neo-liberal and conservative analysis of labor and migration in a way that empowers the people to demand equal and fair treatment for all stakeholders.  (2 hrs)

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April 23: Class V – Decolonizing and counteracting the Impact of Globalization and the Neoliberal (New Confederate) State on the South

Adjunct Faculty – Ruben Solis

Globalization and all of its complexities will be researched in this course as a way of highlighting the deleterious effects of internationally enforced protections enacted by the state to protect and perpetuate corporate entities/government’s ability to promote imperialism. After spending considerable time detailing the history and process of globalization students will be led in practical discussions on how to counteract globalism on a local level and in solidarity with those in the Global South who aim to free themselves of its oppression. Within this effort, the notion of decolonizing solidarity will also be defined by the collective group and put into context around normative ideas of economics and economic growth as it relates to the South. (2 hrs)

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April 30: Class VI – Role of Culture, Art, and Music in Decolonizing the South

Adjunct Faculty – TBD

This course will advocate for study on the use of culture to create liberated spaces in the South through an analysis of art as a capable narrator of the process of decolonization. The course will also examine southern examples of the intersection where are meets action in the form of decolonizing established norms. Specific attention will be placed on literature, film, theater, music, visual art, and poetry in the history of the Southern Freedom Movement and its role in fighting discrimination and injustice. With this in mind, analysis will be encouraged on how to decolonize art and culture in the South, and in turn use it to inform paths to cultural organizing and activism.  (2 hrs)

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May 7: Class VII – The Southern Freedom Movement in the 21^st Century (Southern Freedom Movement Assembly and the Sothern Movement Alliance)

Panel – Ruben Solis, Glory Kilonko, Paulina Helm – Hernandez, Niqua Douglas or Nia Mitchell

Moderator – Les Etienne

This course will detail the history of the Southern Freedom Movement in the present 21^st century political moment and chronicle the stated efforts of the Southern Movement Assembly/Alliance to coordinate actions to achieve a shared purpose: to dismantle the systems that create and maintain racism, oppression and exploitation while also building the social and economic democracy that advances self-determination and sovereignty on multiple fronts. Students will be encouraged to take the knowledge gained from Liberation Spring Semester to engage with the impending Liberation Now! summer project that builds upon the momentum of the movement.  (3 hrs)

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May 14: Synthesis

Facilitator – Stephanie Guilloud

This culminating (Collective) experience will explore both the personal and collective lessons learned from the courses and use the group’s collective learned and personally generated knowledge to use discussion as a means to form answers to the class questions. (2 hrs)