UMass Launches Feinberg Series on Oligarchy and Democratic Alternatives
Free public talks, panels, and workshops will explore oligarchy's global history and strategies for resisting concentrated wealth.
The UMass Amherst History Department is launching a year-long public event series exploring the history and future of oligarchy, beginning Monday, September 28. The 2026-2027 Feinberg Series, titled "Escape from Oligarchy: The History and Future of Rule by the Rich," will feature lectures, panels, workshops, and community discussions that trace global oligarchic rule and the popular movements that have resisted it.
The series opens with an online plenary panel featuring Jeanelle K. Hope, Tristan Hughes, and Clara E. Mattei at 6 p.m. on Zoom. The panelists will examine authoritarian futures envisioned by far-right thinkers and tech billionaires, and explore alternative democratic visions. Series directors wrote that "the consolidation of oligarchic rule, in the United States and around the world, lies at the heart of today's crises of war, resurgent fascism, and climate destruction."
Fall events include a lecture by historian Priya Satia on anti-oligarchic movements of the eighteenth-century world, titled "Who Else Opposed Monarchy in 1776?" on October 22 at 5:30 p.m. Historians and organizers Aviva Chomsky, Julio Flores, and Cecilia Guerrero will examine the relationship between national borders and capitalism in "The Business of Borders" on October 29 at 6 p.m.
Historian Steven Press will contextualize recent expansionist designs through a historical look at the East India Company and King Leopold II's Congo Free State in "How to Buy Your Own Country" on November 9 at 6 p.m. The fall lineup concludes with "Feminist Movements Confronting Oligarchy," a panel on the 1970s Wages for Housework movement with historians Elisabeth Armstrong and Emily Callaci on December 2 at 6 p.m.
The spring semester includes a community-wide reading of "The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis" by Amitav Ghosh, coordinated with Northampton's Forbes Library. Ghosh will deliver the series keynote, "Intimations of Apocalypse," on March 1 at 6 p.m., considering billionaire doomsday planning. The 2027 James Baldwin Lecture, featuring longtime organizers Walda Katz-Fishman and Jerome Scott speaking on "Lessons from the League of Revolutionary Black Workers for Today's Class Struggle," is scheduled for March 25 at 5:30 p.m.
From February through April, the series hosts "The Oligarchy Night School: History Institute for K-12 Educators." A final "plug in" event on April 8 at 4 p.m. will connect students and community members with local grassroots organizations. The Feinberg Series is presented by more than a dozen community and university partners, and all events are free and open to the public.