Ruskin, Slavery, and Zombie History

“Ruskin, Slavery, and Zombie History” examines John Ruskin’s frequent comparison of industrial work to “slavery” and argues that his use of this analogy contributed to still-prevalent narratives that separate the history of the transatlantic slave trade from the history of industrialization. Ruskin’s trenchant social critiques help us think about machines as forces that take over our will and treat all nature as a resource to be exploited. However, I argue that by framing industry as “enslaving” English workers while dismissing the suffering of the literally- and legally-enslaved, he actively disconnected what were in fact mutually dependent systems of racial capitalism; he railed against commodification and objectification while shifting its victims from the plantation to the factory. Meanwhile, enslaved practitioners of vodou or obeah addressed similar problems of agency, objectification, and social death. This essay explores how Ruskin engaged with race, slavery, and the “slave analogy” and considers his work in relation to the figure of the zonbi in order to reconnect the horrors of racialized slavery to Ruskin’s critiques of industrial capitalism. Putting Ruskin’s works in this broader context contests nationalist historical narratives around the origins of industrialization that avoid its connection with the difficult history of slavery.