The Concept of Disciplined Spontaneity

Episode 9 explores the antinomies of autonomy and self-emancipation in the thought of C.L.R. James. Dr. William Clare Roberts joins us to discuss James’ legacy and how it fits into his book project on the history of “history from below.” Please be advised that a side-effect of this episode may be republicanism. (No, you Yanks, not the GOP. It’s the Black Jacobins, get it?)

References:

CLR James, The Black Jacobins, (New York: Vintage Books, 1989).

CLR James, World Revolution 1917-1936: The Rise and Fall of the Communist International (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017)

CLR James. Radical America, vol. IV, no. 4 (May 1970): https://repository.library.brown.edu/storage/bdr:89210/pdf/

Selma James, “The Perspective of Winning,” (1973); in Sex, Race, and Class: A Selection of Writings, 1952-2011 (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2012).

“CLR James talking to Stuart Hall,” Channel 4, dir. Mike Dibb (1984): https://youtu.be/_Gf0KUxgZfI

William Clare Roberts, “Centralism is a dangerous tool: Leadership in CLR James’ history of principles,” forthcoming in The CLR James Journal (2021).

William Clare Roberts, Marx’s Inferno: The Political Theory of Capital (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017).

W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America: 1860-1880 (New York: The Free Press, 1998).

Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2000).

Music: "Vintage Memories" by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com