IR Graduate Field Seminar
Political Science 630 Prof. Jairus Grove
Spring 2011
BUSAD C103.
Monday 2:30-5:00
Description:
The discipline of International Relations has no agreed upon set of methods or topics of study. Rather than try to survey all of the various methods and approaches this course attempts to stage a series of debates. After an introduction to the origins of International Relations as a field of study we will move on to competing theories of human nature and subjectivity, the state, the international system, political economy, and global violence. Throughout the course we will discuss how each of these texts are differently appropriated by schools of thought such as Realism, Liberal Internationalism, Constructivism, Postcolonialism, and Critical Security Studies.
Requirements:
There is approximately 250 pages of reading per week and the expectation is that everyone will be prepared to discuss all of the material. All readings will be available online at:
Each participant in the seminar will be expected to present a 10 to 15 minute critical reading of one of the texts once during the semester. A schedule of presentations will be created on the first day. During the last week of class participants will present abstracts of paper topics developed over the semester. The paper should be 20 to 25 pages.
Regular attendance is expected and since readings are available online please read the articles assigned for the first day of class.
Office hours and my contact information, as well as specific pages numbers for reading selections will be updated soon.
Week 1
Making of a Discipline:
Ola Tunander, “Swedish-German geopolitics for a new century Rudolf Kjellen’s ‘The State as a Living Organism,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 25, No. 2, 1988.
G. Stanley Hall, “The Point of View toward Primitive Races,” The Journal of Race Development, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1910.
G. Stanley Hall, “The Point of View toward Primitive Races,” The Journal of Race Development, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1910.
George H. Blakeslee, “Introduction,” The Journal of Race Development, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1910.
Stanley Hoffman, “An American Social Science: International Relations,” Daedalus: Journal of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Summer 1977.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Summer 1977.
Martin Wight, “Why Is There No International Theory?,” International Theory, April, 1960.
Week 2
Theories of the Human, Classical:
Richard Ned Lebow, “Fear, Interest and Honor.” in Cultural Theory of International Relations, 2009.
Aristotle, “Book 1,” The Politics, 1996.
Al-Farabi “The Aims of Aristotle’s Metaphysics” in Classical Arabic Philosophy, eds. Jon McGinnis and David Reisman, 2007.
Ibn Bajja “Conjunction of the Intellect with Man” in Classical Arabic Philosophy, eds. Jon McGinnis and David Reisman, 2007.
Week 3
Theories of the Human, Modern:
Michel de Montaigne “Cowardice, mother of cruelty” “Of Glory” in The Complete Works of Michele de Montaigne.
Thomas Hobbes, Man and Citizen, 1991.
Jeremy Bentham, The Rationale of Punishment, 1830.
Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, 1962.
Frantz Fanon, “Colonial War and Mental Disorders,” in Wretched of the Earth. 2005.
Week 4
Theories of the Human, Contemporary:
Joan W. Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis” in Gender and the Politics of History, 1988.
Michel Foucault, “The Anthropological Circle” in History of Madness, 2006.
Judith Butler, “Subjection, Resistance, Resignification.” “Melancholy Gender/Refused Identity.” in The Psychic Life of Power. 1997.
Ian Hacking, “The Suicide Weapon,” Critical Inquiry, 2008.
William E. Connolly, “Nature, Affect, Thinking.” in Neuropolitics: Thinking, Culture, Speed, 1999.
Week 5
War and Violence in The Global System Part 1:
William McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society Since A.D. 1000, 1984.
Frantz Fanon, “On Violence in the International Context,” The Wretched of the Earth, 2005.
Carl Schmitt, “Theory of the partisan: intermediate commentary on the concept of the political,” 2007.
Ned Blackhawk, “The Indigenous Body in Pain,” in Violence over the Land: Indians and
Empire in the Early American West, 2006.
Michael Shapiro “Warring Bodies and Bodies Politic,” in Violent Cartographies, 1997.
Week 6
Theories of State Part 1:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “The State of War,” in The Social Contract and other later political writings.
John Locke “Of The State of Nature” and “Of the State of War” in The Second Treatise of Government.
Carl Schmitt, Concept of the Political, pgs. 19-45
Antonio Gramsci, The Modern Prince, 1959.
Louis Althusser, “Ideological State Apparatus” in Lennin and Other Essays.
Week 7
Theories of State Part 2:
Michel Foucault “Governmentality” in The Foucault Effect, ed. Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon.
Charles Tilly, “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,” in Bringing the State Back In, ed. Peter Evans.
Michael Taussig, “Maleficium: state fetishism,” in The Nervous System, 1992.
Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its fragments: Colonial and postcolonial histories, 1993
Alexander Wendt, “The State as Person in International Theory,” Review of International Studies, 2005.
Achille Mbembe, “On Private and Indirect Government”, On the Postcolony, 2001.
Week 8
The State System Part 1:
Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350,
Bartolome de Las Casas, An Account, Much Abbreviated, of the Destruction of the Indies, 2003.
Immanuel Kant, “Perpetual Peace” in Perpetual Peace and Other Essays.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, “Foreign Policy”, “International Law”, “World-history”, in Philosophy of Right, (321-360)
Michel Foucault, Society Must be Defended, Picador, 2001. [Selections]
Week 9
The State System Part 2:
W.E.B. Du Bois, Color and democracy: Colonies and peace, 1945.
Hans Morgenthau, In Defense of the National Interest: a critical examination of American foreign policy. 1951
John Herz, “The Rise and Demise of the Territorial State,” 1957.
Christopher Lee, Make a World after Empire: The Bandung Moment and Its Political Afterlives, 2010.
Kenneth Waltz, “Anarchic Orders and Balance of Power,” in Theory of international Politics, 2010.
Hedley Bull “The Concept of Order in World Politics” and “Conclusion,” in The Anarchical Society, 1995.
Alexander Wendt, Anarchy is What States Make of It. International Organization, 1992
Week 10
Political Economy Part 1:
Adam Smith “Of Colonies” in the Wealth of Nations. 704-749.
John Stuart Mill, “Preliminary Remarks,” in Principles of Political Economy.
Karl Marx, “Introduction” in Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy.
Robert Gilpin “Governing the Global Economy” In Global Political Economy: Understanding the International Economic Order, 377-402.
Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, “Interdependence in World Politics” in Power and Independence, 1989.
Week 11
Political Economy Part 2:
Karl Polanyi, “The International System” “Political Economy and the Discovery of Society” “Transformation in Progress” “Freedom in a Complex Society.” in The Great Transformation, 2001.
Vincent Tucker, The Myth of Development: A Critique of a Eurocentric Discourse” in Critical Development Theory eds. Ronaldo Munck and Denis O’Hearn.
David Harvey, Spaces of Global Capitalism: A Theory of Uneven Geographical Development, 2006.
Week 12
War and Violence in The Global System Part 2:
Edward W. Said “Identity, Negation, and Politics” in The Politics of Dispossession, 1995.
Achille Mbembe, “Necropolitics,” Public Culture, 2003.
Stuart Elden, Terror and Territory: The Spatial Extent of Sovereignty, 2009.
Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker, The Exploit: A Theory of Networks, 2007.
Reza Negarestani, “The Militarization of Peace: Absence of Terror or Terror of Absence,” in Collapse: Philosophical Research and Development, Vol. 1. 2006.
