Oct. 5: Caliban and the Witch Woman: 6-session class begins

Oct. 5, 5:30 - 7:30 PM

Caliban and the Witch: Women, The Body and Primitive Accumulation
Silvia Federici

6-SESSION CLASS BEGINS
Sliding scale: $65/$85

The Brecht Forum
451 West St. (Betw Bank & Bethune)
(212) 242- 4201
http://www.brechtforum.org/
(1,2,3 A,C,E to 14th st. 14A and 14D buses to Abingdon Square/12th Street L to 8th Ave @14th st. F,V to 14th St. B,D,Q to W. 4th)

The class will read and discuss Silvia Federici's latest book,Caliban and the Witch Woman , a history of the body in the transition to capitalism. Moving from the peasant revolts of the late Middle Ages to the witch-hunts and the rise of mechanical philosophy, Federici shows that the birth of the proletariat required a war against women, inaugurating a new sexual pact and a new patriarchal era: the patriarchy of the wage. Firmly rooted in the history of the persecution of the witches and the disciplining of the body, her arguments explain why the subjugation of women was as crucial for the formation of the world proletariat as the enclosures of the land, the conquest and colonization of the 'New World,' and the slave trade.

Silvia Federici, a long time feminist activist and teacher, is co-founder of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa and the RPA (Radical Philosophy Association) Anti-Death Penalty Project. Federici's published work includes: Enduring Western Civilization: The Construction of the Concept of Western Civilization and its 'Others (editor) and A Thousand Flowers: Social Struggles Against Structural Adjustment in African Universities(co-editor).