Note from Ron Strickland: I've kept as the readings for this week the texts Barbara Foley suggested for us when she participated as a guest lecturer in this course in 2001 and 2003. The questions below are those she suggested as well.

Introductory Questions from Barbara Foley

Hello Ron and participants in the cyber-class on marxist theory--

I gather from Ron that the class has begun to read Ted Allen's material. so the questions I pose here will center on that material, tho I'll close with some others germane in a broad way to the other readings.

General issues in marxist methodology:

1. How through Allen's work are the notions of base and superstructure shown to be abidingly central to marxist analysis?

2. How does Allen's work suggest the necessity for the concept of ideology? What definitions of "ideology" serve best to describe the theoretical import of his findings?

3. How does Allen's argument demonstrate that the view of "race" as a "social and cultural construction" is necessary but not sufficient to an understanding of "race" as an ideological concept?

Issues specific to a marxist understanding of "race" and racism:

1. Allen is engaging in an ongoing debate with winthrop jordan and Carl N. Degler. What does jordan mean by his use of the phrase "unthinking decision"? What in his and Degler's theorizations of U.S. racism does Allen reject, and why?

2. Why does Allen even bother to talk about the irish as "racially" oppressed, if they are "white"?

3. When Allen speaks of racism as a "ruling class social control formation," what does he mean? Who is being controlled?

4. Why does Allen approach the problem of understanding U.S. racism by historicizing it? That is, why is history essential, theoretically, to the matter of definition?

5. What is the significance of Bacon's rebellion in Allen's argument? Why does it represent a kind of turning-point in his narrative?

6. Why does Allen contrast at some length the formation of the "buffer social control stratum" in the Caribbean and the mainland colonies?

7. What does Allen reject in the theories of Morgan and Turner, which have been so influential in shaping historians' notions of the configuration of "freedom" in u.s. politics and history?

8. What are the implications of Allen's view of racism as a "deliberate choice mechanism" for an understanding of present-day racism? (This is of course a humongous questions, which we will unpack gradually. but someone should take it up now to get the ball rolling [sorry for the switch in metaphors...])

9. Are there any contradictions involved in Allen's use of the term "white skin privilege"?

The other readings I've asked you to look over generally, tho not completely, support Allen's thesis. (We get to big arguments in the second batch of texts.)

1. How does barbara fields's work on "race" and "ideology" supplement Allen's? does her work contradict his in any important ways? what in particular do you make of her formulation of "white supremacy"?

2. Ditto re. Saxton: does his work on the formation of white working-class/republican consciousness support allen's "deliberate choice explanation" theoretical model? How and/or how not? He is, after all, dealing with a considerably later moment in u.s. history, in which the case MIGHT be made for a "relative autonomy" causal explanation.

3. Lerone Bennett covers much of the same terrain as Allen, in terms of historical period. And he draws a number of comparable conclusions. Yet he is, while influenced by marxism, not a marxist. Why would I say this?