Politics, Society, Culture and History
Etablissement : ESPOL European School of Political and Social Sciences
Langue : Anglais
Formation(s) dans laquelle/lesquelles le cours apparait :
- Master’s in International and Security politics [ECTS : 6,00]
Période : S1
In order to pass the course, each student has to fulfill four requirements. The final grade of the course is composed of the following assignments
(1) Active participation (30%): Each student is expected to read all the assigned texts for each session thoroughly and participate actively in class discussions.
(2) Author’s advocate (20%): Students are taking the role of authors’ advocates in one session (3-11), being ready to explain and defend any of the readings.
(1) Book-based class paper (50%): Students choose one out of five books that are listed in the introduction session below. They write one paper of around 1.000 words (plus/minus 100) in one session of their choice (of session 3-11) to engage with the book through the lens of the readings of that session. Each paper must be submitted by noon the day before class (so usually on Thursdays). Please note that 1 grade point will be subtracted for each hour of delayed submission. Details will be discussed in the introductory session.
This course casts a very wide net to cover key concepts, methods, and themes in the social sciences and humanities. It is a crash course on ‘everything, everywhere, all at once’ that helps new graduate students to revisit – or introduces them to – important problems and perspectives for reasoning, arguing, and writing in graduate-level international studies. This background notably includes concepts of interactions and structures, different views on politics, power, and culture, perspectives on connections, contingencies, and transformations in global history, and challenges of representation and interpretation. Thematically, the course ventures further afield to approach questions of international relations and security indirectly. Students read on such diverse topics as the expansion of the fur trade, modern prisons, the legal innovations of the Spanish scholastics, the destruction of the palace of the Emperor of China, and mosquitos, pirates, and witch trials in the Americas, among others. The goal is to prepare them to return to international relations and security equipped with new questions, wider scopes, and sharper lenses.
