STS 207
Automation and Black Studies Fall 2025
Division II
Cross-listed AFR 214

In the mid-20th century, two important activists, Grace and James Lee Boggs, made sharp theoretical critiques of the increasing automation they witnessed in the Detroit auto industry. In their single authored and coauthored works, Grace and James Lee Boggs tirelessly merged theories of black liberation with Marxism-Leninism, both of which were weapons against automation, job displacement, and deindustrialization. This course will delve into the work of Grace and James Lee Boggs, with specific attention to their criticisms of the history of factory automation, while also examining the context of the mid-20th century, building off what Herb Boyd calls “Black Detroit,” theories of automation, and the transformation of capitalism at the time with the rise of neoliberalism. The course will also point to the ways that criticisms of automation from Grace and James Lee Boggs paved the way for some of our contemporary criticisms of artificial intelligence.