Andrew J Douglas

@ajdouglas.bsky.social

2630 Followers 1399 Following

political theorist at morehouse | latest books = http://bit.ly/mlkcrc + http://bit.ly/duboisccs | in-progress books = du bois and political economy + theories of money in the black radical tradition | distance runner | posts ≠ employer

Rejection email from the London Marathon lottery. Boo hoo.
Me after running the Night Howler 50-miler near Birmingham, AL.
Hot-off-the-press copy of Steven Thrasher’s The Overseer Class.
Job Type Faculty Position Title Visiting Assistant Professor Position Number FV0008 Department Division of Humanities, Social Sciences, Media, and Arts Location Morehouse College - Atlanta GA Position Summary The Division of Humanities, Social Sciences, Media and the Arts is seeking applications for a full-time, interdisciplinary Visiting Assistant Professor (VAP). The department home will be based on the selected candidate’s credentials (the Departments of Sociology, Political Science and Africana Studies & History are available options). Candidates who can support the International Comparative Labor Studies (ICLS ) initiative by helping to develop and to teach courses for a new ICLS minor, are of particular interest. This position is entirely funded by generous grants from the Prudential Foundation and the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund. The goal is to increase capacity to institutionalize ICLS through having both senior and junior level faculty. Preferred qualifications include a terminal degree with emphasis on labor, workers and/or employee ownership. We are especially interested in candidates who can design and teach new courses for the ICLS minor curriculum. The successful candidate will have a teaching load of up to 4 courses per year, including contributions to the College’s General Education curriculum. The candidate is also expected to maintain an appropriate level of scholarly work and service for Visiting Professor status. We are looking for a colleague who thinks creatively about their teaching, engages in scholarship, and can be committed to the mission of Morehouse College—to develop men with disciplined minds who lead lives of leadership and service by emphasizing the intellectual and character development of its students and by assuming a special responsibility for teaching the history and culture of black people. The start date is August 1, 2026. An official transcript will be required of the selected candidate. Required Qualifications Advanc…
Finishers time for the New River Marathon—3:04:00.
Nice little cartoon of flying robots fixing a rocket ship. "Canvas is currently undergoing schedule maintenance, check back soon"
Boston Marathon medals from 2003, 2004, and 2026. Latter is twice the size of the old ones.
My 2026 Boston Marathon results: 2:54:02.
Historic building on the campus of W&M
NYT headline that reads: Trump Finds His Offramp With Iran. But the Causes of War Remain Unresolved. President Trump’s short-term intimidation may have worked, but the fundamental divides with Iran are as sharp as they were in February.
Cover image for Dionne Warwick’s 1967 protest song, “The Windows of the World.”
Old Emory Douglas cartoon featuring three frames, each with the same drawing of a uniformed pig with a rifle and tear gas, but each with a different label: local police, national guard, marines.
Message from the Boston Athletic Association announcing one month to go until the 130th Boston Marathon.
Raggedy piece of paper taped to a door featuring a photo of an aged Du Bois with a quote from a 1933 address at Fisk University: “two things and only two things are necessary—teachers and students. Buildings and endowments may help, but they are not indispensable.”
Second NYT obit for Karl Marx, published March 17, 1883. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1883/03/17/102805435.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
Clipping from the Sept. 6, 1871 New York Times reporting, quite prematurely, on the death of Karl Marx.
Cover of a 1954 pamphlet defending the Jefferson School of Social Science in NY from Red Scare repression. Black and white drawing of a hand and torch with words: "Man's Right to Knowledge: The Case of the Jefferson School."
A page from the leaflet: OUR HISTORY... The California Labor School opened in a loft above a garage in 1942. It grew out of labor and progressive forces forged to defend democracy against fascism. This was the era when fifteen million American workers joined unions of their choice and became a new force in world history. The curriculum met the need for a School of a sharply different type, with a program of labor and social sciences centered on the issues of daily life. Under the direction of David Jenkins, recognition of this new adult education program came at once: a hundred leading CIO, AFL and independent unions endorsed the School. Many political, university and business leaders sponsored the programs or lectured in our classes. In 1944, Professor Holland Roberts of Stanford University joined the staff as educational director, assuming the directorship in 1949. From the beginning the School welcomed all oppressed people. It taught the necessity of removing the cancer of prejudice and discrimination against the Negro, Mexican, Asian and Jewish people, and organized systematic classes in the historic contributions of these peoples to our nation. ... Now with the rising demands for higher living standards and peace, the School must prepare a new people's leadership. With the people's help it will be done.
1952 leaflet featuring a black and white drawing of a diverse group of children and the words, "for the security of all children... for PEACE will you work with us?"
Screenshot of a quote from the article: “I now talk about AI with my students not under the framework of cheating or academic honesty but in terms that are frankly existential,” said Dora Zhang, a literature professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “What is it doing to us as a species?”
Du Bois’s 1957 open letter to Nkrumah, published in the National Guardian.
Map showing HELU member unions and orgs, with Morehouse College AAUP highlighted.
Finishers medal for the 2026 Atlanta Marathon. 20th anniversary of the race.
Excerpt from the linked articled (https://www.aaup.org/issue/winter-2026/artificial-intelligence-threat-academic-labor) Should We Ban Generative AI? Educators are sometimes too quick to adopt the latest and “greatest” technology, even when there is evidence that profits trump pedagogy. It’s easy to buy into the hype when GenAI companies themselves generate lesson plans and educational activities to get educators to adopt their products (these materials have been criticized for essentially being little more than sales pitches). But calling for an absolute AI ban on campuses would be unrealistic. So, what might be proposed instead? For starters, colleges and universities could commit to matching every dollar they spend on AI integration with a dollar spent asking critical questions about AI. This means promoting work, inside and outside the classroom, that explores some of the issues I’ve raised here, as well as any kind of critical perspective on AI. It has become clear recently that some students are just as concerned about the impact of AI as we, their teachers, are. They are already seeing evidence that AI will be used to reduce employment opportunities in their fields and undermine their labor power. Many students in the creative and computer science fields see GenAI as a threat, and rightly so.
Heading of a “message to our readers” email from Inside Higher Ed.
Benjamin Mays birth home.
Map of ICE contractors in Atlanta
Slides featuring images of a scowling Lenin and a seated James Baldwin and quotes from Lenin ("who whom?"), Raymond Geuss ("“The formula should be read not merely ‘Who whom?’ but, rather, ‘Who [does] what to whom for whose benefit?’ with four distinct variables to be filled in, i.e., (1) Who?, (2) What?, (3) To whom?, (4) For whose benefit? To think politically is to think about agency, power, and interests, and the relations among these," and Charles Logan's "Applying the Baldwin Test to Ed-Tech" (https://www.civicsoftechnology.org/blog/applying-the-baldwin-test-to-ed-tech).
Atlanta sidewalk with FUK ICE poster.
Me postrace with a jar of jam (or maybe salsa).
Yellowed and dog-eared old copy of CLR James’s Notes on Dialectics
The US is intensifying its aggression against the sovereign people of Venezuela. Following the deployment of U.S. forces in the Caribbean with the pretex of fight against drug trafficking and after the first land stike on a dock area inside the country, the USA uncontrollable escalates its aggression with the contacting of a large scale strike against Karakas, capturing of the President Nikolas Maduro and his wife. This illegal kidnap, if confirmed, constitute an unprecedented aggressive act that violates every fundamental principals of international law and practice, opening yet another war front in the unstable global scene. This intervention confirming the chaotic phase into which imperialist aggression has entered with unforeseen consequences. The World Federation of Trade Unions condemns unequivocally the imperialist intervention in Venezuela aiming the control of the mineral and energy wealth of the country in the framework of the inter-imperialistic antagonism for domination. The WFTU calls upon its members, the class-oriented and militant unions all over the globe to express the unwavering support to the people of Venezuela condemning the unacceptable and unprecedented intervention and to strongly condemn the imperialist intervention against the people of Venezuela and to tangibly extend their internationalist solidarity in multiple ways, supporting the non-negotiable right of the peoples to determine freely and democratically their own present and future. Solidarity with Venezuela — No to imperialist interventions!
Medals from 2025 races: Cleveland Marathon, Atlanta Marathon, Royal Victoria Marathon, Sioux Falls Marathon; 1st place plaque for Carolina Reaper 50k.
Stylized rendering of WED Du Bois
Garmin data for 19-mile long run in Greenville SC.
Cooperative Money? Lessons from a Classroom Currency Experiment Pull-Quote: “Part of how capitalism reproduces itself is by obscuring what money is, where it comes from, and how it works.” Commentary by Andrew J. Douglas When I teach a class on the philosophy of money, I like to think of it as a labor studies class. Money, it turns out, is always about labor. Money gets to the core of why we work, what jobs are available, and how societies compensate, account for, and mobilize labor power. Money is a notoriously abstract concept. It helps to come at it through an analysis of the work that we do. The class began with a set of questions about work on and around the Morehouse campus. What sort of work would we like to see done? Do we have the necessary labor power at hand? And if so, why are we not investing in the school and community that we want and need? Students were full of ideas about what could be done. They imagined more professors and academic support staff, better mental health services, expanded campus maintenance and beautification efforts. Many expressed an interest in community development projects, work that might reflect a stronger sense of institutional investment in and service to surrounding neighborhoods — community gardens, extension class offerings, reciprocal partnerships with local businesses. As for why these aspirations aren’t becoming reality, students were quick to proffer an answer. This work offers little opportunity for profit. What students thought we should be doing on and around campus is precisely the kind of work that is systematically prevented by a capitalist system designed to turn money into more money. For young, bright-eyed students, and really for anyone interested in building a more rational and sustainable world, this is of course a deeply frustrating reason for why we can’t have nice things.
Me, post run.
A 1941 letter from WEB Du Bois to the warden at Atlanta Federal Penitentiary asking to meet with Puerto Rican independence leader Pedro Albizu Campos. Du Bois notes that he heard about Campos during a recent trip to Cuba and that he and Campos are both Harvard grads.
Graphic for a symposium at Boston University Law School on "The University and Democracy." many of our most powerful universities have enabled the Trump administration’s open effort to exert “existential terror” on our institutions and our communities. This convening will critically examine why universities have failed to protect democracy and how we might democratize our institutions and reorient toward their core mission: to pursue truth and knowledge for the common good.
Riot. Strike. Riot. By Joshua Clover.
1935 letter from W. E. B. Du Bois declining an invitation to a halloween party: "I'm afraid I'm getting to old for Halloween parties. Mrs. Shivery gave me your message, but I really can't find anything to wear, unless I go downa nd skirmish in the sity, and I don't like shopping in Atlanta. Please excuse me."
Beneath the Mountain: An Anti-Prison Reader, by Mumia Abu-Jamal and Jennifer Black.
Cover of Black Liberation/Red Scare: Ben Davis and the Communist Party by Gerald Horne
A page from the IDL's 1935 pamphlet defending Herndon. "ON May 20, 1935, the Supreme Court of the United States pronounced a verdict that will go down in history as the Dred Scott decision of the twentieth century. The state of Georgia, proclaiming that the demand of the hungry for bread is insurrrection, that the mingling of white and Negro toilers is a crime punishable by death, decreed that Angelo Herndon, Negro youdi and leader of starving workers, must be shackled for tw«ity years to the Georgia chain-gang. And now the highest court, subservient to the power of the Southern ruling class, has refused to intervene in the cruel judgment of the courts of Georgia. Seventy-eight years ago, the Supreme Court sent Dred Scott back to the bonds of slavery. It upheld the Fugitive Slave Law, ruling that even on free soil, the slave's chains were not loosened. It pronounced the doctrine that "a Negro has no rights that a white man is bound to respect" ...
Cover of the International Labor Defense's 1935 pamphlet, "20 Years on the Chain Gain? Angelo Herndon Must Go Free!"
Paul Robeson speaking at a Labor Party Rally at Madison Square Garden, October 24, 1950. Du Bois, who was running for US Senate on the Labor Party ticket, is seated in the background.
Canvas AAUP bag full of marble composition books.
2:58.10 at Royal Victoria Marathon.
Crystal Sanders, Josh Myers, and Charles McKinney at Morehouse.
Screenshot of first page of October 1, 2026 statement from Project South, @jvp.bsky.social, @campusworkers.bsky.social and @local6741.bsky.social on university campus repression in Georgia. Full statement here: https://projectsouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Police-on-Campus-Letter.pdf
Age group first place medal for Sioux Falls Marathon 2025
2026 Boston Marathon acceptance notification.
Box of new Morehouse AAUP chapter t-shirts.
Sioux Falls, SD marathon medal.
Photo of The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide by Howard French.
Photo of the 1986 book, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities by Ellen Schrecker.