War on Terror in Contemporary Political Thought
GOVT 346
Spring 2025
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01
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In an ironic statement made to the men and women at Whiteman Air Force Base on October 19, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claimed that in the emerging struggle that came to be known as the "War on Terror," Americans would be faced with a choice when confronting a new, ill-defined enemy: "We have two choices: Either we change the way we live, or we must change the way they live. We choose the latter." And yet, despite Rumsfeld's resoluteness that Americans would stand firm and never "change the way we live," there is hardly a single aspect of American--and indeed global--society, culture, and politics that has not been altered or even dramatically transformed by the attacks of September 11 and the US response. The discipline of political theory practiced in the United States and across the world was no exception. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, a new set of questions were placed on the agenda of political theorists, and older, even perennial questions taken up by the discipline were sharpened or pursued with greater urgency and intensity. This course provides students with a snapshot of a set of theoretical debates that the War on Terror provoked (and still provoke), including debates related to the limits and character of patriotic attachment, the question of the US's imperial ambitions, and how we might forge new conceptual tools to understand forms of terrorist and state terrorist violence. These debates will not simply enable students to think about September 11 and the War on Terror specifically. This course will introduce students to a set of concepts and questions that oftentimes precede, and indeed move far beyond the context of September 11 itself. In short, the attacks of September 11 and the War on Terror provide us with an entry point to examine concepts that are integral parts of the current toolbox political theorists use to make sense of the world. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS GOVT |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (GOVT)(GOVT-Theory) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 75% - 89% |
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