George was living in the world: A Reconstruction of George Jackson's Political Thought

This dissertation reconstructs the political thought of George Jackson, positioning him as a central and underexamined political theorist. Rather than treating Jackson solely as a prisoner or historical figure, this project reads his writings, Soledad Brother and Blood in My Eye, as genres of political theory that diagnose the relationship between fascism, racial capitalism, state violence, and anti-Blackness. The dissertation proceeds in three parts. The first chapter situates and extends Jackson’s theory of fascism, which he identifies as “fascism in motion” as a structure of anti-Black governance tied to property, state power, and reform. Chapter two examines his theory of revolutionary struggle, interpreting his engagement with guerrilla warfare and the figure of the “guerrilla intellectual” as a model for political action within and beyond carceral spaces. The third chapter turns to Jackson’s reflections on death, imprisonment, and resistance, theorizing the prison as a site of “carceral limbo” and developing the concept of “revolutionary mourning” as a form of political praxis. By centering Jackson as a political theorist, this dissertation intervenes in political theory, Black studies, and critical carceral studies. It argues that Jackson’s work offers an indispensable framework for understanding contemporary formations of anti-Black fascism and for insurgency struggles in the present. The title, “George Was Living in The World,” which derives from Angela Davis, is meant to capture that, despite his imprisonment, George connected himself to broader global struggles, and demonstrates how he refused the confines of the prison by theorizing from within it and forging political ties between his condition and anti-colonial struggles and Black liberation struggles around the world.