Module description
This module brings together frameworks and methods from multiple disciplines to think about crisis, a hegemonic and deeply polyvalent concept. Using seminal ideas from queer, trans, and cultural theory, we will consider how moments of crisis are often rife with contradictions and ambivalences and how the language of crisis has become ubiquitous in the contemporary world. We will also discuss seminar theories that situate crisis as endemic to capitalism, and think about how we might think about crisis as ordinary rather than exceptional. Throughout the module, we’ll work through myriad texts and disciplines to consider the notions of crisis and catastrophe, and use different examples to research how crises often unfold in drastically different ways. We’ll examine the kinds of governance some moments of crisis enable and the myriad ways in which the invocation of “crisis” works to stabilise certain norms and destabilise others. Key to this will be thinking about the ways in which existing practices of racialisation have shifted in response to different instantiations of crisis governance. Further, we will think about the politics of crisis in its global dimensions, and across various geographies including, but not limited, to those in the global south.
The module’s summative work will be a portfolio, where students will bring together the close reading work they’ve done all term to think about depictions of crisis both real and imagined. Topics across the ten weeks may include: climate change, migration, epidemics and pandemics, including COVID and AIDS, moral panics around trans rights and bodies, and settler colonialism
Assessment details
Educational aims & objectives
This module aims to:
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Provide students with a theoretical understanding of crisis as a form of governance.
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Consider the paradoxes of crisis governance through the lens of queer theory and teach students how to use queer theory as a framework for analysis.
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Teach students how to engage with different kinds of sources/materials from different disciplines to think about contemporary problems.
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Ask students to think explicitly about how processes of racialisation and racism interface with the notions of catastrophe and crisis.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this module, students will:
- Understand the concept of crisis, and have discussed it in several distinct moments and geographies.
- Discuss the notions of ambivalence, paradox and other heuristics from queer theory to analyse contemporary events such as climate change, migration, austerity, etc.
- Hone their close reading skills through textual and visual analysis of material from several academic disciplines.
- Create a portfolio that communicates their research skills, academic findings, and theoretical knowledge in an accessible manner, which will be useful in the context of both further postgraduate study and future employment beyond their course of study.
Teaching pattern
2 hour seminars