The Marxism Caucus serves as a network of scholars, educators, and community organizers whose work engages with the multiple and varied traditions of Marxian cultural studies, literature, criticism, history, and the study of society.  

In the last several years, there has been an increased interest within American studies in questions of political economy and the often contradictory role of capitalism within the formation of social movements, cultural production, racial inequalities, U.S. empire, gendered performance and sexual practice, among other crucial issues the American Studies Association has placed at the center of its inquiry.   

The Marxian tradition has a long and multi-tendency history of engaging such questions through the lens of the historical development of capitalism and the material production of culture and ideology.  We thus hope Marxian theory can be a productive site of engagement for scholars whose work identifies with the Marxian tradition and for scholars who identify with other critical traditions and/or are approaching Marxism for the first time.  The caucus will encourage an open and welcoming space for members of the ASA to dialogue with Marxian theory as well as to consider what relationship Marxism has had to American studies since the field's inception in the 1930s.  

ASA Marxism Caucus Roundtables 2017

"Marxism and Anti/Colonialism in the American (Studies) Century"

"Afterlives of the Russian Revolution"

ASA Marxism Caucus Roundtables 2016

"American Studies Scholars Have No Country: Marxism, American Studies, and the Meaning of "Home"
“Sites of Marxist Practice in the Twenty-First Century”

Also Sponsored by the Marxism Caucus:  
"Private Prisons and Innocent Victims: What We Keep Getting Wrong about the PIC (and Why It Matters)"

ASA Marxism Caucus Roundtable 2015

"Producing the Racial Subject:  Identity and Resistance Through Historical Modes of Capitalist Accumulation"