::University of Leicester School of Management::Critical Perspectives on Management::
Module Information

Academic Year: 2006/2007
Sessions: 5
Year: MSc
Time: Wednesday 9:30-11:30, 1:30-3:30, plus 26/2 (see below)
Semester: 2
Venue: Ken Edwards Building, Lecture Theatre 2

Module Coordinator: Stevphen Shukaitis
Room: Freemens Common M-Block, Room 8
Email: ss325 [at] leicester [dot] ac [dot] uk
Office Hours: Tuesdays 2:00-4:00 or by appointment

MODULE AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
Aims
Today, as well as for many years, concerns over the conduct, but more importantly the basic methods and goals of business and management, have manifested themselves in a widespread and broad-based anticapitalist movement.   This module seeks to provide an introduction to these movements, with a view to a deeper understanding of the reasons for the emergence of this current resistance to capitalism, business and management.   The goal of the module is not to provide tools for controlling or ‘managing' anticapitalism, but to try to understand the goals and strategies of anticapitalism.   This will be done by (1) sketching an historical and theoretical framework to understand corporate capitalism and (2) looking in some detail at three instances of anticapitalist thought and practice.

Objectives
At the end of this module students should:At the end of this module students should:
- Have an increased understanding of the contemporary cultural and political context of business and management practice;
- Have an increased ability to understand different viewpoints and develop mature and intelligent ways of negotiating these differences;
Develop skills in discussing, sharing and developing ideas in groups.

TEACHING METHODS
Teaching will consist of lectures and in-class discussion of readings and current events.   The first sessions will be used to develop some basic tools for critically engaging with capitalist organizations that will lay the basis for considering the particular examples of anticapitalist thought and practice whose analysis will comprise the rest of the module.

MODULE CONTENTS

::Wednesday January 31::

Morning: Introduction / Overview

Simon Tormey (2004) “The Hows and Whys of the Thing Called ‘Capitalism,'” Anti-capitalism: A Beginner's Guide . Oxford: Oneworld Publications: 9-37. Also available at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/simon.tormey/books/anticapitalism.htm

Karl Marx (1978) “Alienation and Social Classes” and “Wage Labor and Capital,” The Marx-Engels Reader, 2 nd Edition . Ed. Robert C. Tucker. New York: WW Norton & Co: 133-135, 203-217.

Afternoon:

Viewing and discussion of the documentary The Fourth World War (2003)

Also, take a look over Nate Holdren's notes on militant research: http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2006/08/16/is-militant-research-3/

::Wednesday February 7::

Morning: What is Capitalism? Continued

Afternoon: Enclosures, Insurrections, Commons

Silvia Federici (2004) Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation . Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia.

::Wednesday February 21::

Morning:

Viewing and discussion of the documentary The Take (2004)

Afternoon: Autonomy, Horizontality, Struggle

Marina Sitirin, Ed. (2006) Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina. Oakland / Edinburgh: AK Press. There is also a good overview of the book at http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/596/1/

::Monday February 26::

Afternoon : Cultural Subversion, Aesthetics, Situationism

Raoul Vaneigem   (2001 [1967]) The Revolution of Everyday Life . London: Rebel Press.

Also, take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada, and related links

::February 28::

Morning:

Guest lecture by Alex Foti from the Chainworkers on precarious labor

Paolo Virno (2004) “Ten Theses on the Multitude and Post-Fordist Capitalism,” A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life . New York: Semiotext(e): 95-111.

Afternoon

Conclusion and Wrap-Up. Additional materials may be added if necessary.

::Additional Readings::

This is a brief list of additional readings that you may find useful as background materials, although they are optional (and not required) for the module. Additional information and materials will be provided for individual sessions.

* Notes from Nowhere, Eds. (2003) We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anti-capitalism . London: Verso.

* Simon Tormey (2004) Anti-capitalism: A Beginner's Guide . Oxford: Oneworld Publications

Graeme Chesters and Ian Welsh (2006) Complexity and Social Movements: Multitudes at the Edge of Chaos . New York: Routledge.

Gerald David et al, Eds. (2005) Social Movements and Organization Theor y. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Paul Kingsnorth (2003) One No, Many Yeses: A Journey to the Heart of the Global Resistance Movement . London: Free Press.

Naomi Klein (2000) No Logo .   London: Flamingo.

Tom Mertes, Ed. (2004) A Movement of Movements: Is Another World Really Possible? London: Verso.

Francois Polet, Ed. (2004) Globalizing Resistance: The State of Struggle . London: Pluto Books.

Derek Wall (2005) Babylon and Beyond: The Economics of Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Globalist, and Radical Green Movements . London: Pluto Books.

ASSESSMENT

Your grade for the module will be 100% based on an examination which responds to the materials in the module.   To give focus to your assignment, you should focus in particular on one of the main assigned course texts (by Federici, Vaneigem, and Sitirin. Although your assignment should focus in particular on one of these areas, this should be set in the context of an understanding of anticapitalist resistance that will be developed through the module as a whole. More information about the exam and what is expected will be provided closer to the exam date.

Plagiarism

To plagiarise is to give the impression that you have written or thought something that you have borrowed from someone else.   This means that if you want to refer to the ideas of others you must use a referencing system.   It also means that all work that you submit should be your work, written by yourself alone.   Plagiarism will not be tolerated, and will be treated with the strictest severity.   For further details see the section on Academic Dishonesty in the Postgraduate Regulations.