ABOLITION: A GLOBAL HISTORY
AMST 315| HRST 315
Fall 2025
Instructor: Professor Christina Heatherton
Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:55 PM- 4:10PM
Location: SH 205
Office Hours: Thursdays 10AM – 12PM, via zoom
Office Hours Zoom Link: https://trincoll.zoom.us/j/4438970848
Contact: christina.heatherton@trincoll.edu
Phone: (860) 297-2345
Overview: Over the past decade, a new word has emerged in the lexicon of struggle: abolition. Alongside calls to “abolish prisons,” “abolish ICE,” and “abolish borders,” organizers have challenged the horizons of political possibility. This class considers contemporary debates while situating them in a long global history. We will study how definitions of freedom, the state, and human rights have been shaped by struggles to abolish slavery in tandem with conjoined struggles against racism, capitalism, colonialism, gendered violence, and militarism. We will learn how abolition has long been defined not simply as the negation of untenable violence but as an affirmation of alternative ways of being. By engaging American Studies and Human Rights scholarship on incarceration, disability, racism, gender, and sexuality, we will deepen our understanding of this language of struggle.
Student Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the semester, students will be equipped to:
• Interpret theoretical debates in American Studies and Human Rights scholarship.
• Compare and contrast abolition in different historical and political contexts.
• Formulate original research questions based on course themes.
• Analyze secondary research utilizing interdisciplinary theories.
• Create their own arguments about abolition in different contexts.
- Profesor: Christina Heatherton