Introductory description

This module examines some of the core debates within social and political thought. We will read and discuss extracts from the ‘classics’ of enlightenment political thought juxtaposed alongside poststructuralist, (post) colonial/decolonial and Indigenous texts. Through these juxtaposed readings, we will examine the lively debates and ‘politics’ of social theory. This endeavour will demonstrate the ways in which an enlightenment legacy underpins social theory and its relation to contemporary normative political rationalities and practices of sovereignty, law, democracy, religion, race, gender, and sexuality. Contestations of this legacy from the perspectives of decolonial, postcolonial, poststructural, and queer thought reveals the significance of grappling with social theory towards the praxis of social justice

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.

1. Introduction
2. Enlightenment as Legacy
3. Contracts – Race, Sex & the Social
4. Hegel’s Empire
5. Manifestos: Marxism/Fanonism
6. Rethinking Power: Foucault/Mbembe
7. Rethinking Sovereignty/Indigenous Readings
8. Rethinking Sovereignty/Precarity & Vulnerability
9. Decolonising (Post) Colonial Sovereignty
10. Wrap up/Social Media Sovereignty

Learning outcomes

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

• (1) demonstration of literacy regarding the debates in social theory and political thought
• (2) demonstration of an ability to identify and evaluate ‘the politics of’ or debates in social theory and political thought
• (3) demonstration of an in-depth ability to draw on these debates to offer analysis of a particular social and/or political context

Indicative reading list

Agamben, G. 1995. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford, Stanford University Press.
Berberoglu, Berch, 2017. Social Theory: Classical and Contemporary, a Critical Perspective, London: Routledge.
Duschinski, Haley, Bhan, Mona, Mahmood Cynthia & Zia, Ather (eds) 2018, Resisting Occupation in Kashmir. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Clarke, Kamari Maxine 2017, ‘Rethinking Sovereignty through Hashtag Publics: The
New Body Politics’, Cultural Anthropology 32 (3): 359 – 366.
Fanon, Frantz, 1961. The Wretched of the Earth, New York: Grove Weidenfeld.
Foucault, M., 2003. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France 1975-1976, trans. David Macey, eds, Mauro Bertani and Alessandra Fontana, London, Penguin.
Lamble, Sarah 2013, ‘Queer Necropolitics and the Expanding Carceral State’ Law Critique 24: 229-253.
Marx, Karl & Engels, Frederik 2012, The Communist Manifesto [1848], Editor, Jeffrey Isaac, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. pp. 73 – 92.
Moreton-Robinson, Aileen 2006, Towards a New Research Agenda: Foucault, Whiteness and Indigenous Sovereignty, Journal of Sociology 42.4: 383-395.
Pateman, Carol and Mills Charles (eds) 2007. Contract and Domination, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Puar, Jasbir 2017. The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability, Duke University Press.
Rifkin, Mark 2009, ‘Indigenising Agamben: Rethinking sovereignty in Light of the ‘Peculiar’ status of Native Peoples’ Cultural Critique 73: 88 – 124.
Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Nadera, 2014. ‘Human Suffering in Colonial Contexts: Reflections from Palestine’, Settler Colonial Studies 4.3: 277-290.
Visweswaran, Kamala (ed) 2013. Geographies of Everyday Occupation’ in Experiencing Militarism in South Asia and the Middle East. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Interdisciplinary

Readings drawn from history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, politics and theology.

International

Readings drawn across different geopolitical contexts

Subject specific skills

knowledge and critical understanding of the well-established principles of their area(s) of study, and of the way in which those principles have developed
ability to apply underlying concepts and principles outside the context in which they were first studied
knowledge of the main methods of enquiry in the subject(s) relevant to the named award, and ability to evaluate critically the appropriateness of different approaches to solving problems in the field of study
an understanding of the limits of their knowledge, and how this influences analyses and interpretations based on that knowledge.
use a range of established techniques to initiate and undertake critical analysis of information, and to propose solutions to problems arising from that analysis
a systematic understanding of key aspects of their field of study, including acquisition of coherent and detailed knowledge, at least some of which is at, or informed by, the forefront of defined aspects of a discipline

Transferable skills

the ability to manage their own learning, and to make use of scholarly reviews and primary sources (for example, refereed research articles and/or original materials appropriate to the discipline).
apply the methods and techniques that they have learned to review, consolidate, extend and apply their knowledge and understanding, and to initiate and carry out projects
critically evaluate arguments, assumptions, abstract concepts and data (that may be incomplete), to make judgements, and to frame appropriate questions to achieve a solution - or identify a range of solutions - to a problem
an ability to deploy accurately established techniques of analysis and enquiry within a discipline
conceptual understanding that enables the student:

• • to devise and sustain arguments, and/or to solve problems, using ideas and
    techniques, some of which are at the forefront of a discipline
• • to describe and comment upon particular aspects of current research, or
    equivalent advanced scholarship, in the discipline
    an appreciation of the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of knowledge