Introductory description

This module provides an introduction to some of the most important themes and key thinkers of European political theory in the 20th and 21st century. The module is looking at a number of related questions:

• who has and who exercises power, what does it do, and how can we challenge it?
• what is freedom, who is free, and what are the constraints on our freedom?
• what is the state, what does it do, and how can we resist it?
  To see how those questions have been raised, understood and debated, we will study a number of thinkers including Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, Frantz Fanon, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Henri Lefebvre, Giorgio Agamben, Judith Butler and Achille Mbembe.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

There will be three key themes - State, Power and Freedom.They will be examined through a range of texts and thinkers to demonstrate different arguments in a range of contexts

1. Existentialism, Freedom and Responsibility
2. Totalitarianism and Violence
3. Race and Colonialism
4. Ideology and State Apparatuses
5. The Punitive Society
6. Biopolitics and Governmentality
7. The Politics of Space
8. Sovereign Power and the State of Exception
9. Exclusion and Precarity

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate an introductory knowledge of key thinkers texts and arguments within the European political theory traditionof the 20th and 21st Centuries
• Demonstrate skills in textual analysis; contextual situation of arguments; and development of claims in relation to contemporary debates.

Indicative reading list

Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Stanford University Press, 1998
Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception, University of Chicago Press, 2005
Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses", in On Ideology, Verso, 2008 (and
other collections)
Louis Althusser, On the Reproduction of Capitalism, Verso, 2014
Judith Butler, Precarious Life, Verso, 2014
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, Penguin, 1977
Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, Allen Lane, 2003
Henri Lefebvre, State, Space, World: Selected Essays, University of Minnesota Press, 2009
Jean-Paul Sartre, Basic Writings, Routledge, 2001

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

TBC

Transferable skills

Critical analysis of texts, situation of ideas in contexts, and critical reasoning skills.