POLS3020 Political Critique (5 cr)
Tweet text
Description
This course consists of three interrelated parts. First, it poses the question ‘what is political critique’, drawing on relevant texts and traditions. Second, it identifies and characterizes key critical theoretical positions, including Marxism, post-colonialism, critical race and whiteness studies, feminism, new materialism and environmental critiques. Finally, it uses the rubric of diverse ‘critical motifs’ (e.g. borders, home, occupation, rights) to analyze contemporary critical-political projects.
Learning outcomes
As a result of participating in this course, students will be able to:
(i) Reflect on the question ‘what is critique?’ in reference to relevant philosophical texts and traditions;
(ii) Identify and describe the characteristics of the key critical theoretical position, including feminist, post-colonial, Marxist and environmental critiques.
Determine various critical conceptual motifs and evaluate their role in analysis of selected political projects.Literature
- Alcoff, Linda Martín. 2015. The Future of Whiteness. Polity.
- Ben-Shai, Roy. 2023. Critique of Critique. Stanford University Press.
- Braidotti, Rosi. 2019. Posthuman Knowledge. Polity.
- Butler, Judith. 2004. Undoing Gender. Routledge.
- Fassin, Didier and Axel Honneth. 2022. Crisis under Critique. How People Assess, Transform, and Respond to Critical Situations. Columbia University Press.
- Mbembe, Achille. 2019. Necropolitics. Duke University Press.