Key Terms

The following are my key terms, terms that consistently reappeared through each semester even if the same exact term was not used. They are organized by semester alphabetically.

Fall Semester

Coloniality

Coloniality is a term used by Sylvia Tamale in Decolonization and Afrofeminism which she defines as, “the long-standing patterns of power that resulted from European colonialism, including knowledge production and the establishment of social orders” (xiii). Tamale uses this term to discuss how Europe imposed their gender and race constructs to reshape Africa to work in Europe’s favor economically and politically, still impacting Africa in the present.

In Connor Woodman’s article about The Imperial Boomerang, he details how methods deployed against colonial populations “boomeranged” back to imperial homelands. He wrote, “Hitler’s exceptionalism consisted largely in the fact that were applied against European populations, within Europe itself. Looked at from the global South, which had suffered centuries of the most extreme depredations of European imperialism, Nazi Germany did not seem so unusual.” Woodman, while not explicitly using the term coloniality, is explaining the view that European colonial systems have come to impact patterns of power in the imperial homelands.

Finally, in his Discourse on Colonialism, Aimé Césaire argues that the barbarism that Europeans imposed on Africa has been applied to European peoples as a result. He succinctly argues this point by stating, “in order to ease his conscience gets into the habit of seeing the other man as an animal” and “tends objectively to transform himself into an animal” (41). In his scathing criticism of colonialism, Césaire says that colonialism has caused Hitler and World War II’s atrocities as the colonizer had adopted the traits which he sees in the colonized.

Equity

In “The Supreme Court, 1982 Term-Foreward: Nomos and Narrative”, Robert Cover defined equity by saying “The Court’s authority derives ultimately from a conception of the equity judge as guarantor of the social order, who must have nearly absolute authority to put a stop to the disorders…” (55). This conception of equity aligns with Dr. O’Geen’s explanation in plenary on October 7, where he said “Equity jurisdiction is about court injunctions and maintaining the status quo until constitutional questions are resolved.” 

This understanding of equity raises serious concerns for Cover. A strong conception of equity jurisdiction risks eliminating the judge role as an independent constitutional role by making them state actors. Cover suggests that equity jurisdiction undermines the judiciary’s constitutional role. By enforcing the status quo, the courts avoid constitutional questions and relinquish their obligation to meaningfully check state power.

Legal Pluralism

Legal pluralism is a term that first appears in Sylvia Tamale’s Decolonization and Afrofeminism. She defines it as, “The enforcement of two or more legal systems, including social norms and rules, by and on communities” (xiv). Tamale uses this term to differentiate Western systems of law, gender, and race against African systems, showing that no system is truly universal.

In Performing Masculinities by Nwando Achebe, legal pluralism is displayed through the rise of Ahebi Ugbabe. When she is made warrant chief by the British in colonial Nigeria, it is abnormal to the British and illegitimate for the Igbo. The British traditionally would never promote a woman to a position of power while the Nigerians only saw her as a British servant who did not rise through the traditional process. Here, legal pluralism plays out as both see her oddly from different perspectives. On top of this, the Igbo view the legitimacy of a monarch as one who “has added strength and honor when his subjects are many” and “the community owns the king” (127). This lack of input on who rules the Ibgo from the people made Ahebi illegitimate in their eyes. This system differs from European systems of monarchs coming to power as they have a right to rule through divine right or family. Legal pluralism plays out here as well as who comes to rule differs among the British and the Igbo.

Memorialization

In Cultural Memory in the Wake of Violence, Marita Sturken uses the term memorialization to describe the remembrance of an event and an avenue to collectively do so. Sturken uses this definition to describe the narrative that comes out of events and the perspectives represented, making it a matter “about inclusion and exclusion” (64). Sturken uses this to argue that the way we remember events also has significant consequences on events that come afterwards. She uses 9/11 to argue this point, saying the way we have remembered it has caused 2 wars, thousands of more deaths, and ignored the fact that citizens from other countries died that day.

In discussing the impact of Nuremberg on world affairs down the line, Mahmood Mamdani argues that Nuremburg, often seen as a good example of justice against aggressors, failed to truly explore how fascism became so attractive. It is this ignorance that Mamdani says, “served only to solidify the nation-state order and its inevitable cruelties” (118). Mamdani focuses more on the consequences of memorialization specifically in relation to Nuremberg, which he says resulted in “the losers who pay for war crimes, not the winners” (118) thanks to the way we remember the tribunal.

Racial Capitalism

“Racial capitalism” is a term first coined by Cedric Robinson. As Robin D. G, Kelley wrote in, “What did Cedric Robinson Mean by Racial Capitalism”, capitalism and racism “did not break from the old order but rather evolved from it to produce a modern world system of “racial capitalism” dependent on slavery, violence, imperialism, and genocide”. In this account, Robinson is saying that racism is not incidental but instead constitutive of capitalism. 

In her blog post “With What are you Apologizing?,” Panashe Chigumadzi develops this insight by stating, “Transatlantic slavery is the material and metaphysical womb of the modern world.” She goes on to give examples of foundational figures and institutions, from Adam Smith saying the European exploration and discovery are mankind’s most important events to the world first multinational company, the Dutch East India Company, becoming rich off the slave trade. For Chigumadzi, capitalism survives by continuously “sorting who is most fit for exploitation and extraction,” reaffirming Robinson’s claim that capitalism has always required racism and racial distinction to function.

Repertoire

In Diana Taylor’s Archive and the Repertoire, she argues that the repertoire “enacts embodied memory: performances, gestures, orality, movement, dance, singing – in short, all those acts usually thought of as ephemeral, nonreproducible knowledge” (20). Knowledge is embodied and transferred through these acts. Taylor uses this definition to show how Native Americans were sidelined and suppressed by Spanish colonizers during colonization as writing was not used frequently compared to performance. The colonizers placed much more emphasis on writing instead.

In Silencing the Past, Michel-Rolph Trouillot discusses the impact of unwritten narratives on European colonialism and thought of other civilizations. The lack of writing and the use of oral stories and performance was seen by Europeans as making Africans and other non-Westerners as “fundamentally non-historical” (7). He uses the example of the Haitian Revolution to show this practice by saying “the contention that enslaved Africans and their descendents could not envision freedom … was based not so much on empirical evidence as on an ontology, an implicit organization of the world and its inhabitants” (73). They were shocked because they told themselves a narrative that Africans could not comprehend these concepts because of a lack of written work. The repertoire has been used by colonizers to oppress the colonized.

Social Contract

While not explicitly used, John Locke in his Second Treatise of Government described the relationship between the people and government that can be encapsulated in the term “social contract”. In his Second Treatise, Locke stated that in a state of nature, human beings have a desire for self-preservation and have natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Human beings consent to civil government through a social contract, which states that civil government’s purpose is to protect peoples’ natural rights.

In his “Contemporary Ratification” speech, William Brennan stakes out the Supreme Court’s duties and role under the constitution. Brennan focuses on interpretation, saying it differs by generation and rights change as well. The “social contract”, which in this case is the United States Constitution, is dynamic and constantly changing along with the Supreme Court’s tasks. The Supreme Court specifically has a duty to protect constitutional rights and accommodate for change. Brennan uses these concepts to attack original intent and promote his interpretive model instead.

Ubuntu

Desmond Tutu, when discussing how South Africa should move on from Apartheid, uses the term ubuntu to showcase how the country can and should move on. In the piece No Future Without Forgiveness, Tutu defines ubuntu as, “he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole…” (14). Tutu effectively says that an individual is one with the community which shares values of harmony, friendliness, and community, preventing vengeance or violent redistribution.

Panashe Chigumadzi criticizes Tutu’s “Christianised” definition in her blog post “With What are you Apologizing?” In it, she writes, “Ubuntu demands costly forgiveness; you cannot receive forgiveness without giving something up as an act of your contrition.” When focusing on slavery’s impact on the modern-world, she says that it is not possible to earn forgiveness under ubuntu given the world structure. She uses the “original” definition of ubuntu to criticize the colonizers and call for true forgiveness, ending the world as we know it.

Spring Semester

Cheapness 

In A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Raj Patel and Jason Moore write that the modern world has been defined by seven elements that preserve the capitalist system: nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives. As Patel and Moore define cheapness, “it’s a set of strategies to manage relations between capitalism and the web of life by temporarily fixing capitalism’s crises. … Cheap is a strategy, a practice, a violence that mobilizes all kinds of work – human and animal, botanical and geological – with as little compensation as possible” (22). Capitalism relies on minimal cost and maximum benefit to the harm of everyone in its path in order to succeed.

In How to Survive a Plague, we see cheapness specifically in relation to care and lives. When people with AIDS needed treatments in order to survive in the 1980s, the FDA conducted the tests slowly and when they finally finished them, the drugs were too expensive for most people to buy. Here, a combination of business, who wants to make a profit, and government shows how certain lives are expendable and that they will not do anything to help people with AIDS as it requires action that makes lives and care less cheap.

Hegemony

In plenary on March 5, 2026, Dr. Lipsker defined hegemony as “making things that can be explained into something we accept unconditionally and without thinking.” He made this definition in the context of the book we read for that day, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. In the book, Patel and Moore say that the “hegemony”, in this case regarding capitalism, dominates our thinking about different things to a point where it seems “natural”. They say that hegemony is made through instruction manuals and the use of force. It also requires, according to Antonio Gramsci, that forces across society unite and outmaneuver rivals of the existing hegemony.

In Docile Bodies, Michel Foucault describes a type of hegemony that is seen with the way bodies are treated and used. Like the hegemony associated with capitalism by Patel and Moore, Foucault describes a shift in the way we treat and view bodies through discipline. This thinking of us trying to be as productive and organized as possible is seen as “natural” as discussed in Section on March 24, 2026. Foucault also describes the way discipline became hegemonic, saying, “It is rather a multiplicity of often minor processes, of different origin and scattered location, … gradually produce the method of a general method” (138). Like Patel and Moore, Foucault is describing how discipline became hegemonic, saying it was gradual and through different means.

Property

In his Second Treatise on Government, John Locke wrote that property was one of three natural rights that all individuals had, along with life and liberty. Locke defines property as, “Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.” For Locke, something becomes your property on the condition that you labored for it.

In “Whiteness as Property”, Cheryl Harris reframes what is considered property by writing, “Property is thus said to be a right, not a thing, characterized as metaphysical, not physical” (1725). She uses this theory to say that the concept and identity of “whiteness” constitutes property as its definition has consistently changed over time. Whiteness has determined whether someone is free or enslaved and where one could work, making it of economic value, making it a form of property. This new definition forces us to think about the role of identity in the economy and how it makes a meaningful difference in people’s lives.

Protest

In Section on Thursday, April 23 2026, Dr Bory said, “Political theory has thought of protest as reactive and not tactical.” This difference on how to view protest has significant consequences for the response. If it is seen as reactive, then it is easier to portray protestors as violent, irrational, and crazy, making it easier to crack down. By contrast, if protest is seen as tactical, it shows more organization and humanizes the protestors as fighting for a cause, making it harder to break it up.

In Choreopolicing and Choreopolitics, Andre Lepecki talks about creating a “choreopolitics of freedom” or a reimagination and enacting of a politics of movement. Lepecki ties this to protest and its effectiveness, writing, “the concept and practice of choreography implements, needs, produces, and reproduces an “art of command.” Such understanding of choreography obviously implies that, as with any system of command, choreography also implements, needs, produces, and reproduces whole systems of obedience” (16). The purpose of a protest is to try to physically stop something one opposes, making it opposed to something within the established order. Following examples of obedience and organization, however, makes it just like the system the protest is opposing, reducing its effectiveness at achieving true change and creating a “politics of movement.”

Punishment

In Panopticism, Michel Foucault documents how the focus of punishment became more individualized and used to police behavior. He says, “it is the peculiarity of the nineteenth century that it applied to the space of exclusion of which the leper was the symbolic inhabitant (beggars, vagabonds, madmen and the disorderly formed the real population) the technique of power proper to disciplinary partitioning” (199). Instead of just punishing someone for a crime they committed, the isolation is intended to force the individual in question to change their behavior when in isolation and feel like they are being watched.

In The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and the documentary13th, it is seen how the system of punishment is used to criminalize black people in the United States for purposes of control and economic benefits. Alexander began her book by showing a specific example of how a black person who was labeled a “felon” could not vote, similar to his male ancestors. The prison system is used to prevent certain kinds of people from exercising their rights or enjoying social benefits, creating a permanent racial caste system. In 13th, it showed how the carceral state was used for economic benefit, as the private prison lobby earns money from hosting prisoners and companies can get free labor, gaining more profit in the process. Punishment here is not only used to prevent certain behaviors: it is used to attack an identity for economic purposes.

Reparations

In “Time for Reparations: A Global Perspective”, Jacqueline Bhabha, Margareta Matache, and Caroline Elkins argue that reparations are necessary, saying that political and legal changes are not enough because they, “do not erase the infrastructure generated by past injustice, any more than they erase the divergent political and human capital accrued by differentially positioned positioned social actors” (4). Reparations to them are part of a holistic intervention to correct past injustice, citing emancipated slaves as an example as they got legal freedom but slavery’s legacy still exists as shown in the dramatic wealth gap between black and white Americans.

In an Oxford Union Debate, Dr. Shashi Tharoor made the case for why Britain should pay reparations to India and other countries it colonized. He said that Britain looted from India money, manpower, and resources. Unlike “Time for Reparations”, Tharoor frames reparations more as a way for Britain to “atone” for what it has done. It is more a symbol of responsibility for the purposes of a potential road to reconciliation.