Authoritarianism, Conflict, Collaboration

This course draws on multiple disciplines and interdisciplinary fields (anthropology, literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, history, postcolonial and feminist studies) to explore questions about authoritarian and anti-authoritarian contexts and practices. Authoritarianism, broadly defined, is characterized by centralized power, repression of dissent, and pressure to obey authority. Dictatorship, totalitarianism, and fascism all name forms of authoritarian regimes. It can be easy to recognize authoritarianism when it has become established in such forms. But what does it look, feel and sound like in terms of how it can infiltrate our daily systems? In this class, we will consider how authoritarianism can take hold through looking at dynamics of power in the relations, discourses and structures that make up everyday sites such as the home, family, the school, places of worship, and the workplace. On the flip side, we will also consider examples of collaboration in contexts of conflict and disagreement. What does working (and learning, teaching, and living) together in contexts of conflict, and with multiple forms of difference and disagreement, involve? The course will include attention to the significance of the nation-state as a form of political organization that dominates the globe today. We will also consider examples of social and political movements that have emerged in response to state repression in the 20th and 21st centuries in different parts of the world, as well as contemporary discourses about racism and anti-racism, sexual violence, war, capitalism and economic power, and disagreement and conflict.

Some of the questions we will examine over the term include: How do we understand relations between truth and power (and how are these terms defined)? How do we know what we think we know (epistemology)? What is structural power? What is the significance of relations between individual and group for how we respond to tensions between “individual freedom” and “collective or community wellbeing”? What is the significance of private/public distinctions for politics? Course materials will likely include work by Louis Althusser, Nur Amali Ibrahim, Benedict Anderson, Hannah Arendt, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Sigmund Freud, Verónica Gago, Adolf Hitler, William Mazzarella, George Orwell, Edward Said, Carl Schmitt, Timothy Snyder, Gayatri Spivak and Luisa Valenzuela, among others. We will also draw on contemporary news, social media and film. Students will be evaluated based on small group projects, weekly reading responses, and a mid-term paper.