François-Xavier Plasse-Couture.

Transcription

1 University of Hawaii at Manoa Political Science Department POLS 305 Global Politics/Comparative: Postcolonialism, Developmentalism, Humanitarianism, and Global Violence Summer 2013 François-Xavier Plasse-Couture Saunders Hall Room 617 MTWRF: TBD Office Hours: TBD Course Description: This course examines global politics through a consideration of four topics: developmentalism, (post)colonialism, humanitarianism, and violence. Following this diversity of topics and contexts, the course will approach the comparison and translation of cultures, material conditions of existence and political orientations from a variety of theoretical perspectives that sought or seek to understand and/or problematize the four broad concepts listed above. More specifically, the course is an attempt to introduce you to, and encourage you to go beyond the familiar concepts, categories, and affects that are mobilized for the purposes of political and cultural comparison. As such, the course examines relationships across various geographical and social spaces and engages different historical periods with a view to problematizing the familiar ways of thinking about modernity, liberalism, developmentalism, humanitarianism, colonialism, postcolonialism, violence and terrorism as well as their conditions of possibility. The course is geared towards questions that offer stimulating perspectives by exploring: 1. The global and inter-related character of political, economic and cultural conditions of identity, state formation, and north-south relations. 2. The instability of the categories through which we organize and understand politics and culture in a global context by illustrating that the content and nature of world politics is by no means fixed, and are themselves the result of power relations, clashes of forces. Upon completion of this course, you should have an understanding of the historical, ethical and epistemological conditions that make it possible for us to talk about or

2 respond to various postcolonial societies, development, humanitarian work, Liberalism, and violence in a certain way. On the whole, you should be prepared for stimulating reading and reflection on questions that create the conditions of possibility for thinking differently about global politics. Course Objectives and Organization The objectives of this course are both subject-specific and general. General objectives include the development of oral, written and research skills as the course requires you to read and critically assess a significant amount of complex (and at times contradictory) material. The subject-specific objectives include developing the ability to critically analyze the categories around which identity/difference is constituted on a global scale by being attentive to the workings of capitalism, modernity/coloniality, north-south relations, race, development, humanitarianism, and nationalism. While this course provokes you to identify and articulate research problems, it also aims at equipping you with a sense of politics and ethics that makes you sensitive to issues, places and peoples beyond your immediate area of interest while being attentive to the claims and different subject positions that our selves and others inhabit. Teaching and Assessment: I conceptualize the classroom as a shared space and I see my role as facilitating critical thinking through dialogue, provocation to thought, experimentation and discussion. This mode of active learning places upon you the obligation to read and attend class regularly, to explore alternative venues and to share your views, thoughts and assessments with others. Due to the organization of the course, sessions on occasion may include lectures and debates as well as the exploration of various aesthetic representations. Amongst others, these may include short video clips, films, and novels. I use them to introduce and contextualize the material at hand and to generate a discussion based on issues arising from our assessments of the assigned texts or reflection.

3 Assessment: 20 % of your assessment will be based on in-class participation. This will take the form of participating in class discussions/group presentations. You are expected to demonstrate evidence of having read and thought about the class topic. 20 % of your course mark will be based on a critical review or appraisal of a text (or set of texts), aesthetic representation, or practice. We will further discuss this during first day of class. 60% of your assessment will be based on a longer essay/research project that engages one or multiple thinkers. (12-18 pages) Paper topics, advice on structuring your essays and related issues will be covered in class. Please read carefully the Writing Guidelines at the end of this syllabus. We will discuss these in class at the very outset. Readings: The choice of texts is dictated by the multiple locations the course explores in its attempt to present (post)colonialism, development, humanitarian work, and global violence as intertwined processes/dynamics, even though they can sometimes appear as contradictory formations. The following list is by no means exhaustive. In the pages that follow, you will find a list of required and recommended readings for each session. Our discussions will be based mostly on the required readings. The lists of recommended texts are included to provide a broader context as well as more detail, which may provide a useful starting point and additional references for written assignments or future studies. I suggest to do your readings in the order they are presented. All readings will be available online via Laulima. Week 1 (28-31 May / 8-12 July): Introduction and Colonialism 1. Aimé Césaire. Discourse on Colonialism (Excerpts) in Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman, Eds., Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), pp Fanon, Franz. Introduction and The Negro and Language in Black Skins/White Masks, (New York: Grove Press, 1967.), pp. 7-40

4 3. Thiong o, Ngugi wa. Introduction and The Language of African Literature Excerpt from, Decolonising the Mind. (London Portsmouth, N.H.: J. Currey Heinemann, 1986.), pp V. Y. Mudimbe. Introduction and Discourse of Power and Knowledge of Otherness, in The Invention of Africa, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), pp.ix-xii, Mbembe Achille, Introduction: Time on the Move in On the Postcolony (Berkeley: California University Press,2001), pp Week 2 (3-7 June /15-19 July): On Developmentalism 1. G. Stanley Hall. The Point of View toward Primitive Races, The Journal of Race Development. Vol. 1, No. 1, 1910, pp George H. Blakeslee. Introduction, The Journal of Race Development. Vol 1, No. 1, 1910, pp W. W. Rostow. Chapter 1: Introduction and Chatper 2: The Five Stages-Of- Growth A Summary, in The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto. Third Edition. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990 [1960]), pp Arturo Escobar. Economics and the Space of Development: Tales of Growth and Capital and Conclusion: Imagining A Postdevelopment Era, in Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp and Michael J. Shapiro. Social Science, Geophilosophy and Inequality, International Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 2, Summer 2002, pp Week 3 (10-14 June / July): On Postcolonialism 1. Achille Mbembe. Provisional Notes on the Postcolony in Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 62, No. 1. (1992), pp Achille Mbembe. God s Phallus in On the Postcolony (Berkeley: California University Press,2001), pp Partha Chatterjee. Whose Imagined Community?, Millenium: Journal of International Studies, Volume 20, Number 3, 1 December 1991, pp Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. May the Subaltern Speak? 5. Dipesh Chakrabarty. Introduction: The Idea of Provincializing Europe, in Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp Week 4 (17-21 June / 29 July 2 August): On Humanitarianism (Submission of Review Essays On First Day of Class This Week)

5 1. Margareth Keck and Kathryn Sikkink. Transnational Advocacy Networks in International Politics: Introduction, in Activists Beyond Borders, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), pp Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore. Buractatizing World Politics, in Rules For the World: International Organizations in Global Politics, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), pp Anupama Rao and Steven Pierce. Humanitarianism, Violence and Colonial Exception, in Discipline and the Other Body: Correction, Corporeality, Colonialism, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), pp Eyal Weizmann. The Humanitarian Present and Arendt in Ethiopia in The Least of All Possible Evils: Humanitarian Violence from Arendt to Gaza, (New York: Verso, 2011), pp and Week 5 (24-28 June / 5-9 August): On Global Violence Part I 1. Frantz Fanon. On Violence in the International Context, in The Wretched of the Earth, 2. Carl Schmitt. The Theory of the Partisan: A Commentary/Remark on the Concept of the Political, (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1963). English translation. (Michigan State University Press, 2004) [Online] 3. Michael J. Shapiro, Warring Bodies and Bodies Politic, in Violent Cartographies: Mapping Cultures of War, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), pp Mahmood Mamdani. Making Sense of Political Violence in Postcolonial Africa, Identity, Culture and Politics, Vol. 3, No. 2, December Mark Rupert and Scott Solomon. Globalization, Imperialism and Terror in Mark Rupert and Scott Solomon, Eds., Globalization and International Political Economy, (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), pp Week 6 (1-5 July / August): On Global Violence Part II (Submission of Research Papers On Last Day of Class) 1. Michel Foucault. History of Sexuality Vol. I, (New York: Vintage, 1990) Part 5 (pp ) 2. Achilles Mbembe. Necropolitics, Public Culture, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2003, pp Mahmood Mamdani. Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: A Political Perspective on Culture and Terrorism, American Anthropologist, Vol. 104, No. 3, 2002, pp

6 4. Randy Martin. From the Race War to the War on Terror, in Patricia Ticineto Clough and Craig Wilse, Eds., Beyond Biopolitics: Essays on the Governance of Life and Death, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), pp Massumi, Brian. National Enterprise Emergency: Steps Toward an Ecology of Power, Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 26, No. 6, 2009, pp Writing Guidelines All papers should be: Double spaced Typewritten Spell-checked, proof-read, edited for punctuation, grammar and coherence Turned in by the dead-line; late papers will be assessed a grade cut Plagiarism An important consideration when writing papers is plagiarism. For your information, the University of Hawai i Student Conduct Code defines plagiarism as follows: Plagiarism includes but is not limited to submitting, in fulfilment of an academic requirement, any work that has been copied in whole or in part from another individual s work without attributing that borrowed portion to the individual; neglecting to identify as a quotation another s idea and particular phrasing that was not assimilated into the student s language and style or paraphrasing a passage so that the reader is misled as to the source; submitting the same written or oral or artistic material in more than one course without obtaining the authorization from the instructors involved; or drylabbing, which includes obtaining and using experimental data and laboratory write-ups from other sections of a course or from previous terms. Any student found guilty of plagiarism in this course will immediately receive a failing grade and will be referred to the Dean of Students. One easy rule of thumb to keep out of harm s way in this area: if you re not sure, cite it! (More on citations below). Citations Given the importance of supporting your work, here are some guidelines. When you quote from a text, you must indicate that you have done so (failure to do so constitutes plagiarism). In addition to placing cited material within quotation marks, you must also

7 make some kind of note as to the title of the quoted work and the page number. For our purposes, this can be as simple as: (Madison, Federalist 10:65) or (Marx and Engels, 1848: 21) with the full bibliography appearing at the end of the paper. Or, references can be put into footnotes where the full citation resides. Additionally, anything you paraphrase, or any idea you borrow, should be attributed to the author and cited in the very same manner. For more examples and information on how to cite different kinds of sources, consult the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers or the Chicago Manual of Style. Cite World Wide Web sources with the appropriate URL and the date when you contacted the site. With web citations, the rule is the same as with other citations: using the information provided in your citation, I should be able to access the exact same material that you claim to have accessed.