WesMaps - Wesleyan University Catalog 2017-2018       Summer Session       Winter Session       Home       Archive       Search
CS92PROD
Critical Perspectives on the State

ANTH 302
Fall 2017
Section: 01  
Crosslisting: FGSS 302
Certificates: International Relations, Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory

This course builds on Marxist, poststrucuturalist, feminist, anarchist, and cultural analyses to take a critical approach to the state--what it is and what it does. We will examine how the state is imagined by those who write about it and struggle against it. Where does the state begin? How do states act, and what are the consequences of these acts? How is rule consolidated and how are individuals and communities annexed to the project of rule? How do people engage with state acts and ideologies? We will read texts drawn from a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, feminist theory, political theory, philosophy, sociology, and geography, that examine the nature, everyday workings, and effects of state power. Drawing upon ethnographic examples from around the world, we will analyze how states are cultural artifacts that produce and regulate people's identities and bodies, reproduce social inequalities, and engender resistances of all sorts. Some of the topics we will discuss include bureaucracy, governmentality, the security state, the prison industrial complex, terror and militarism, law and justice, citizenship, democracy, refugees, anti-state movements, the "man" in the state, and welfare and post-welfare politics.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS FGSS
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (ANTH)(CSCT)(FGSS)(STS)
Past Enrollment Probability: 50% - 74%

Last Updated on MAR-29-2024
Contact wesmaps@wesleyan.edu to submit comments or suggestions. Please include a url, course title, faculty name or other page reference in your email ? Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459