| Unit name | Race, Power, and Politics: From the Haitian Revolution to Decolonial Futures |
|---|---|
| Unit code | POLIM0053 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | M/7 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Van Veeren |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies |
| Faculty | Faculty of Social Sciences and Law |
This unit develops and surveys a number of key histories, concepts, and thinkers from critical race studies, black political thought, postcolonial and decolonial studies. Through a closer examination of these sub-disciplines, the unit will enable students to recapture lost and erased marginalised thinkers and ideas from the ‘traditional’ western canon, follow ideas as they emerged and developed within these distinct traditions, and push into the latest thought on intersectionality and decolonial approaches. Students will therefore be encouraged to engage with the work of W.E.B. DuBois, C.L.R. James, Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha, Walter Mignolo, Maria Lugones, bell hooks, Angela Davis, Iris Young, Achilles Mbembe, Sylvia Wynter, Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy, Paolo Freire, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Aimé Cesaire, Charles Mills, Carole Pateman and Kimberlé Crenshaw, amongst others, and to understand key concepts such as racialisation, racial capitalism, othering, whiteness, white privilege and white supremacism, double consciousness, settler colonialism, the subaltern, sociogeny and necropolitics.
Using these concepts, and the work of these key social and political thinkers, we will develop new understandings of political subjectivity and power relations through race, class, gender and sexuality, and therefore develop a stronger and more nuanced understanding of social and political forces today and ongoing challenges from counter-terrorism to Black Lives Matter.
Aim: To develop and introduce understandings of key histories, concepts, and thinkers from within critical race studies, black political thought, postcolonial and decolonial studies in order to develop new understandings of political subjectivity and power relations through race and its intersections with class, gender and sexuality.
On successful completion of the unit, students will be able to:
Weekly two-hour seminars.
25% Summative – 1,000-word essay or equivalent (Learning outcomes 1-5)
75% Summative – 3,000-word essay or equivalent (Learning outcomes 1-5)
If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.
If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. POLIM0053).
How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours
of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks,
independent learning and assessment activity.
See the Faculty workload statement relating to this unit for more information.
Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit.
The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. If you have self-certificated your absence from an
assessment, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (this is usually in the next assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any extenuating circumstances and operates
within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.
