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Jacob Kripp

Boston University, Political Science, Visiting Assistant Professor

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I work at the intersection of Critical War Studies, Historical International Relations, Political Theory, and interdisciplinary studies of racism and empire. My research shows how the concepts of “war” and “peace” are racialized in global and imperial politics. In turn, I show how these conceptual articulations of “war” and “peace” enable the reproduction of racial and imperial violence across multiple scales of international order.

I am currently working on two book length manuscripts. The first, entitled Race War, Racial Segregation, and Global Peace, unravels how and why racial segregation came to be imagined as the key to global racial peace in white world order from 1898 to 1935. Untangling how the idea of global peace was constructed through anxieties of global race war, this project demonstrates how racial “peace” entrenched global racial hierarchy through new forms of racial violence and spatial control across scales of international order.

The second book project, entitled The Martial University, explores the reciprocal and mutually co-constitutive relations between imperial warfare and knowledge production in the early Cold War. This project tracks how the transformation of warfare into a mathematically calculable science dovetailed with new visions of higher education, weapons research, imaginaries of racialized combat in the Korean War, and structures of military Keynesianism within and beyond the university.

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Papers by Jacob Kripp

The Creative Advance Must Be Defended: Miscegenation, Metaphysics, and Race War in Jan Smuts's Vision of the League of Nations

American Political Science Review, 2022

This paper argues that the idea of global peace in early twentieth-century liberal international ... more This paper argues that the idea of global peace in early twentieth-century liberal international order was sutured together by the threat of race war. This understanding of racial peace was institutionalized in the League of Nations mandate system through its philosophical architect: Jan Smuts. I argue that the League figured in Smuts's thought as the culmination of the creative advance of the universe: white internationalist unification and settler colonialism was the cosmological destiny of humanity that enabled a racial peace. In Smuts's imaginary, the twin prospect of race war and miscegenation serves as the dark underside that both necessitates and threatens to undo this project. By reframing the problem of race war through his metaphysics, Smuts resolves the challenge posed by race war by institutionalizing indirect rule and segregation as a project of pacification that ensured that settlement and the creative advance of the cosmos could proceed.

Glissant and the Middle Passage: Philosophy, Beginning, Abyss

Philosophy and Global Affairs

Arendt and Glissant on the Politics of Beginning

Constellations , 2020

Teaching Documents by Jacob Kripp

Causes of War and Peace

Race and Racism in International Relations

The Military-Industrial Complex

In 2022, the United States spent almost a trillion dollars ($876.94 billion) on war making. The e... more In 2022, the United States spent almost a trillion dollars ($876.94 billion) on war making. The effects of this war spending shape both domestic and international politics. As a cross-party consensus is built around the war machine, spending on social programs and public goods are diminished and cut. This social war on the lowest, racialized, classes within the United States, is related directly to the imperial war that the U.S. funds and enacts abroad. Military spending is a project undertaken in the name of defense, security, and Pax Americana, but it’s main raison d’etre is destruction and death. Since 9/11 the United States has spent $8 trillion on war, killing between 3.6 and 3.8 million people, and displacing 38 million refugees (Costs of War Project).

How is war made? That is the primary question that this course tackles. It uses the phrase “military-industrial complex” – coined by Dwight D. Eisenhower in his famous farewell address as a launchpad for this investigation. While Eisenhower’s speech focused on the relationship between the U.S. army, the government, and defense industry, this course takes a broad approach to the question of the military-industrial complex. We will analyze the culture, social, political, and economic relations that sustain war making from the Gunbelt, labor, cultures of war, racism & capitalism, finance, knowledge production & the university, logistics, policy, imperial warfare, desire and weapons, and the “boomerang” effects of empire. We will focus especially on the way these social and political processes shape warmaking in New England.

Race, Capitalism, and World Politics

Introduction We live in a world of brutal racialized violence and massive economic inequality. Ho... more Introduction
We live in a world of brutal racialized violence and massive economic inequality. How did the world get this way? How does a violent past continue to exert force on the present? How are racialized violence and inequality related? Can these global conditions be changed? This course tackles these questions through the lens of global racial capitalism. Global racial capitalism means three things. First, capitalism is more than just the study of economic markets. It is a way of organizing life and society that shapes how we act and think politically. Second, racism extends beyond individual prejudice. It is deeply ingrained in this social organization we call capitalism. Finally, this system has always involved politics that extends across borders. It brings people into contact through imperialism, colonialism, warfare, trade, and cultural exchange. This course wagers that this historical and theoretical perspective gives us a better window into understanding our unequal and violent present by looking at how race, class, and power function across borders.

Structure of the Course
The course proceeds more or less historically, with a majority of our time spent on rethinking the global politics of the 20th century from the perspective of the Global South. We begin by discussing the relationship between racism and capitalism in the 19th century. Here our readings deal with slavery, revolution, and settler colonialism. Though our course proceeds historically, each of the authors that we engage with in the first part of this course demonstrate in different ways how the racial capitalist past is also our present. Our next section rethinks the politics of the first half of the 20th century by focusing on World War and fascism from below. We then turn to what we think of today as the Cold War. From the perspective of those in the Global South, the Cold War was not Cold – nor was the Cold War a distinct phase in global politics. Instead, the Cold War was a time of extreme global racial violence, upheaval, decolonization, and neo-colonialism. In our final part of the course, we will think through how the history of racial capitalism that we’ve learned throughout the course shapes the politics of our present and future. Here we will examine the politics of “Endless War”, policing, homocapitalism and homonationalism, and the potential for fascist revivals in our present.

War is, arguably, the core concept of International Relations. Major geopolitical conflicts form ... more War is, arguably, the core concept of International Relations. Major geopolitical conflicts form the core of the big concepts and questions of the discipline. International Relations traces its origins to questions of war and peace in the wake of World War I. Why wars are fought and the imminent possibility of conflict structure ideas about the international system. But war itself is rarely studied. How battles are fought, why soldiers participate in battle, how war undoes orders and remakes social realities, are questions that are often absent from IR. War’s paradoxical centrality and neglect in International Relations is compounded by a near total sidelining of the salience of racism and white supremacy to the study of global politics. Despite this neglect, what W.E.B. Du Bois once called the “global color line” was, and remains, the one of the most salient dimensions of imperial, colonial, and racist international relations.

This course aims to correct these absences by studying race (or better, racism) in conjunction with war. This course is premised on the idea that war shapes race. That is, what we often take for granted as “race” is often, if not exclusively, unmade, made, and remade, through battle, war, and warlike relations. War reconfigures racial imaginaries. This course is also premised on the idea that racism shapes the conduct and practice of war. That war can be driven to extremes – torture, atrocity, nuclear annihilation, is a product of racism. Racism drives battle imaginaries. How and why these dynamics play out is for us to investigate together over the course of the Spring semester.

Theory and Politics of African Decolonization

Prior to Ghana’s independence in 1957, Africa—the world’s second largest, and second most populou... more Prior to Ghana’s independence in 1957, Africa—the world’s second largest, and second most populous, continent—was nearly completely divided into colonial possessions owned by European imperial powers. By 1968, a short decade later, forty African countries had become independent nations through violent and non-violent struggle, leaving only fascist Portugal—and a handful of settler states—with substantial African possessions. At the forefront of this political moment was a group of African leaders and thinkers whose work helped shape not only the trajectory of individual African countries but the world as a whole. It is my contention that one cannot fully understand contemporary world politics without appreciating the processes of African decolonization. Unfortunately, most of the brilliant poets, intellectuals, and movement leaders at the heart of this world-historic transformation are not widely read today, especially in the American academy. This semester we will addresses this absence by reading their work as an entrée into thinking about present-day issues of economic inequality, political violence, and human emancipation in Africa, and around the world. The course starts with an examination of colonialism’s political, economic, cultural, and epistemic legacies. We then turn to specific debates concerning how various thinkers understood the problems facing the forging of African nation-states, the creation of a postcolonial African identity, and the establishment of an independent economy.

Introduction to International Relations

International Relations (IR) is the study of interstate and cross-border encounters. Scholars who... more International Relations (IR) is the study of interstate and cross-border encounters. Scholars who study domestic politics ask: what happens within a state? Scholars who study International Relations ask: how do different states interact with one another? How does the movement of people, goods, and ideas across borders shape cultural and political life? How does war between states shape global order? Can states be bound to a higher international power beyond themselves? Is it possible to govern the globe through rules that all states must follow? Some even ask whether revolution will necessarily have to be international-will transformation have to be on the scale of the world to be effective? This course introduces students to the different ways scholars of IR have tried to grapple with these questions. We will discuss whether anarchy or hierarchy is a more adequate lens to describe IR, discuss contemporary international affairs, analyze international organizations, and discuss the role of violence as a world ordering force. We will focus especially on how racism, colonialism, and gender shapes international order, both historically and in our present. International Relations asks questions at a scale that few others ask, we will do our best to try and come up with some answers together.

Postpunk Political Theory Intersession

W.E.B. Du Bois and the Global Politics of Race

Inspired by the way W.E.B. Du Bois critically analyzed the manifold histories of racism from mult... more Inspired by the way W.E.B. Du Bois critically analyzed the manifold histories of racism from multiple perspectives and genres, this course places his work in conversation with academic articles, music videos, poetry, blog posts, comic books, and political manifestos to interrogate global politics. Using Du Bois as our guide, we will investigate political economy and debt, war and imperialism and the racial hierarchy of global politics. Each week we will have a quote from Du Bois that will serve to anchor our discussion and springboard us into questions of Du Bois’s relevance for contemporary international relations.

This course will contribute towards rethinking the project of International Political Thought from a through Du Bois. Students will gain a deep understanding of Du Bois by placing close readings of texts from several genres into conversation. They will also learn to critically analyze the history and present of racialized global politics from multiple perspectives.

The Creative Advance Must Be Defended: Miscegenation, Metaphysics, and Race War in Jan Smuts's Vision of the League of Nations

American Political Science Review, 2022

This paper argues that the idea of global peace in early twentieth-century liberal international ... more This paper argues that the idea of global peace in early twentieth-century liberal international order was sutured together by the threat of race war. This understanding of racial peace was institutionalized in the League of Nations mandate system through its philosophical architect: Jan Smuts. I argue that the League figured in Smuts's thought as the culmination of the creative advance of the universe: white internationalist unification and settler colonialism was the cosmological destiny of humanity that enabled a racial peace. In Smuts's imaginary, the twin prospect of race war and miscegenation serves as the dark underside that both necessitates and threatens to undo this project. By reframing the problem of race war through his metaphysics, Smuts resolves the challenge posed by race war by institutionalizing indirect rule and segregation as a project of pacification that ensured that settlement and the creative advance of the cosmos could proceed.

Glissant and the Middle Passage: Philosophy, Beginning, Abyss

Philosophy and Global Affairs

Arendt and Glissant on the Politics of Beginning

Constellations , 2020

Causes of War and Peace

Race and Racism in International Relations

The Military-Industrial Complex

In 2022, the United States spent almost a trillion dollars ($876.94 billion) on war making. The e... more In 2022, the United States spent almost a trillion dollars ($876.94 billion) on war making. The effects of this war spending shape both domestic and international politics. As a cross-party consensus is built around the war machine, spending on social programs and public goods are diminished and cut. This social war on the lowest, racialized, classes within the United States, is related directly to the imperial war that the U.S. funds and enacts abroad. Military spending is a project undertaken in the name of defense, security, and Pax Americana, but it’s main raison d’etre is destruction and death. Since 9/11 the United States has spent $8 trillion on war, killing between 3.6 and 3.8 million people, and displacing 38 million refugees (Costs of War Project).

How is war made? That is the primary question that this course tackles. It uses the phrase “military-industrial complex” – coined by Dwight D. Eisenhower in his famous farewell address as a launchpad for this investigation. While Eisenhower’s speech focused on the relationship between the U.S. army, the government, and defense industry, this course takes a broad approach to the question of the military-industrial complex. We will analyze the culture, social, political, and economic relations that sustain war making from the Gunbelt, labor, cultures of war, racism & capitalism, finance, knowledge production & the university, logistics, policy, imperial warfare, desire and weapons, and the “boomerang” effects of empire. We will focus especially on the way these social and political processes shape warmaking in New England.

Race, Capitalism, and World Politics

Introduction We live in a world of brutal racialized violence and massive economic inequality. Ho... more Introduction
We live in a world of brutal racialized violence and massive economic inequality. How did the world get this way? How does a violent past continue to exert force on the present? How are racialized violence and inequality related? Can these global conditions be changed? This course tackles these questions through the lens of global racial capitalism. Global racial capitalism means three things. First, capitalism is more than just the study of economic markets. It is a way of organizing life and society that shapes how we act and think politically. Second, racism extends beyond individual prejudice. It is deeply ingrained in this social organization we call capitalism. Finally, this system has always involved politics that extends across borders. It brings people into contact through imperialism, colonialism, warfare, trade, and cultural exchange. This course wagers that this historical and theoretical perspective gives us a better window into understanding our unequal and violent present by looking at how race, class, and power function across borders.

Structure of the Course
The course proceeds more or less historically, with a majority of our time spent on rethinking the global politics of the 20th century from the perspective of the Global South. We begin by discussing the relationship between racism and capitalism in the 19th century. Here our readings deal with slavery, revolution, and settler colonialism. Though our course proceeds historically, each of the authors that we engage with in the first part of this course demonstrate in different ways how the racial capitalist past is also our present. Our next section rethinks the politics of the first half of the 20th century by focusing on World War and fascism from below. We then turn to what we think of today as the Cold War. From the perspective of those in the Global South, the Cold War was not Cold – nor was the Cold War a distinct phase in global politics. Instead, the Cold War was a time of extreme global racial violence, upheaval, decolonization, and neo-colonialism. In our final part of the course, we will think through how the history of racial capitalism that we’ve learned throughout the course shapes the politics of our present and future. Here we will examine the politics of “Endless War”, policing, homocapitalism and homonationalism, and the potential for fascist revivals in our present.

War is, arguably, the core concept of International Relations. Major geopolitical conflicts form ... more War is, arguably, the core concept of International Relations. Major geopolitical conflicts form the core of the big concepts and questions of the discipline. International Relations traces its origins to questions of war and peace in the wake of World War I. Why wars are fought and the imminent possibility of conflict structure ideas about the international system. But war itself is rarely studied. How battles are fought, why soldiers participate in battle, how war undoes orders and remakes social realities, are questions that are often absent from IR. War’s paradoxical centrality and neglect in International Relations is compounded by a near total sidelining of the salience of racism and white supremacy to the study of global politics. Despite this neglect, what W.E.B. Du Bois once called the “global color line” was, and remains, the one of the most salient dimensions of imperial, colonial, and racist international relations.

This course aims to correct these absences by studying race (or better, racism) in conjunction with war. This course is premised on the idea that war shapes race. That is, what we often take for granted as “race” is often, if not exclusively, unmade, made, and remade, through battle, war, and warlike relations. War reconfigures racial imaginaries. This course is also premised on the idea that racism shapes the conduct and practice of war. That war can be driven to extremes – torture, atrocity, nuclear annihilation, is a product of racism. Racism drives battle imaginaries. How and why these dynamics play out is for us to investigate together over the course of the Spring semester.

Theory and Politics of African Decolonization

Prior to Ghana’s independence in 1957, Africa—the world’s second largest, and second most populou... more Prior to Ghana’s independence in 1957, Africa—the world’s second largest, and second most populous, continent—was nearly completely divided into colonial possessions owned by European imperial powers. By 1968, a short decade later, forty African countries had become independent nations through violent and non-violent struggle, leaving only fascist Portugal—and a handful of settler states—with substantial African possessions. At the forefront of this political moment was a group of African leaders and thinkers whose work helped shape not only the trajectory of individual African countries but the world as a whole. It is my contention that one cannot fully understand contemporary world politics without appreciating the processes of African decolonization. Unfortunately, most of the brilliant poets, intellectuals, and movement leaders at the heart of this world-historic transformation are not widely read today, especially in the American academy. This semester we will addresses this absence by reading their work as an entrée into thinking about present-day issues of economic inequality, political violence, and human emancipation in Africa, and around the world. The course starts with an examination of colonialism’s political, economic, cultural, and epistemic legacies. We then turn to specific debates concerning how various thinkers understood the problems facing the forging of African nation-states, the creation of a postcolonial African identity, and the establishment of an independent economy.

Introduction to International Relations

International Relations (IR) is the study of interstate and cross-border encounters. Scholars who... more International Relations (IR) is the study of interstate and cross-border encounters. Scholars who study domestic politics ask: what happens within a state? Scholars who study International Relations ask: how do different states interact with one another? How does the movement of people, goods, and ideas across borders shape cultural and political life? How does war between states shape global order? Can states be bound to a higher international power beyond themselves? Is it possible to govern the globe through rules that all states must follow? Some even ask whether revolution will necessarily have to be international-will transformation have to be on the scale of the world to be effective? This course introduces students to the different ways scholars of IR have tried to grapple with these questions. We will discuss whether anarchy or hierarchy is a more adequate lens to describe IR, discuss contemporary international affairs, analyze international organizations, and discuss the role of violence as a world ordering force. We will focus especially on how racism, colonialism, and gender shapes international order, both historically and in our present. International Relations asks questions at a scale that few others ask, we will do our best to try and come up with some answers together.

Postpunk Political Theory Intersession

W.E.B. Du Bois and the Global Politics of Race

Inspired by the way W.E.B. Du Bois critically analyzed the manifold histories of racism from mult... more Inspired by the way W.E.B. Du Bois critically analyzed the manifold histories of racism from multiple perspectives and genres, this course places his work in conversation with academic articles, music videos, poetry, blog posts, comic books, and political manifestos to interrogate global politics. Using Du Bois as our guide, we will investigate political economy and debt, war and imperialism and the racial hierarchy of global politics. Each week we will have a quote from Du Bois that will serve to anchor our discussion and springboard us into questions of Du Bois’s relevance for contemporary international relations.

This course will contribute towards rethinking the project of International Political Thought from a through Du Bois. Students will gain a deep understanding of Du Bois by placing close readings of texts from several genres into conversation. They will also learn to critically analyze the history and present of racialized global politics from multiple perspectives.