COURSE INTRODUCTION AND APPLICATION INFORMATION

Course Name
Modernity and Its Critics
Code
Semester
Theory
(hour/week)
Application/Lab
(hour/week)
Local Credits
ECTS
PSIR 672
Fall/Spring
3
0
3
7.5
Prerequisites
None
Course Language
English
Course Type
Elective
Course Level
Third Cycle
Mode of Delivery -
Teaching Methods and Techniques of the Course
Course Coordinator
Course Lecturer(s)
Assistant(s)
Course Objectives The primary purpose of this seminar course is to explore the ways in which the relationship between violence and politics is conceptualised within modern and contemporary political thought.
Learning Outcomes The students who succeeded in this course;
  • to assess the relationship between violence and politics
  • to assess ethical and political assumptions of different theoretical approaches to the relationship between violence and politics
  • to assess political phenomena and problems from a critical perspective
  • to evaluate historical and contemporary issues in light of the possibilities offered by theoretical research
  • to make scholarly contributions to political theory, political science and international relations
  • to participate in academic debate through seminar presentations and class discussion
  • to apply political theory to contemporary public debates
Course Description This course will explore the relationship between and violence and politics through a close and critical reading of some the key texts within modern and contemporary political thought. Particular attention will be paid to the following questions: Should we look at the relationship between violence and politics from the perspective of the state or from that of the oppressed? Is violence a necessary aspect of politics? Should we see violence as a justified response to oppression and injustice? Is violence antithetical to politics or constitutive of it? Is assimilation a form of violence? Among the thinkers/writers to be studied are Freud, Sartre, Robespierre, Sorel, Benjamin, Derrida, Schmitt, Fanon and Arendt.
Related Sustainable Development Goals

 



Course Category

 Core Courses
Major Area Courses
Supportive Courses
Media and Managment Skills Courses
Transferable Skill Courses

 

WEEKLY SUBJECTS AND RELATED PREPARATION STUDIES

Week Subjects Required Materials
1 Introduction
2 Primordial Foundations? Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, “Why War?”
3 Violence and Imperialism Arendt, “Imperialism”, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 222-302. Supplementary Reading: Karuna Mantena, “Genealogies of Catastrophe: Arendt on the Logic and Legacy of Imperialism” in Politics in Dark Times, Seyla Benhabib (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 83-112.
4 Antisemitism Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew. Supplementary Reading: Michael Walzer, “Preface” (in Anti-Semite and Jew).
5 Violence and Colonialism Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, (“Concerning Violence”, 35-106). Supplementary Readings: Sartre, “Preface,” The Wretched of the Earth, 7-31. Richard J. Bernstein, “Frantz Fanon’s Critique of Violence” in Violence: Thinking without Banisters (Polity, 2013), 105-127.
6 Violence versus Politics Arendt, “On Violence”, Crises of theRepublic, 103-198. Supplementary Reading: Richard J. Bernstein, “Hannah Arendt: On Violence and Power” in Violence: Thinking without Banisters (Polity, 2013), 78-104.
7 Paper submission I
8 Concentration Camps Arendt, “Total Domination”, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Part 3, Chp. 12, Section 3.
9 The Holocaust Yehuda Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust, Chp. 1, 2 & 3.
10 The Harm of Genocide Claudia Card, “Genocide and Social Death”, Hypatia 18, 1 (2003), 63-79. Shmuel Lederman, “A Nation Detsroyed: An Existential Approoach to the Distinctive Harm of Genocide”, Journal of Genocide Research 19, 1 (2017), 112-132.
11 Paper submission II
12 Politics of Memory I Duncan Bell, “Memory, Trauma and World Politics” in Duncan Bell (ed) Memory, Truma and World Politics (Palgrave, 2006), 1-29. Daniel Levy and Natan Sznaider, “Memory Unbound: The Holocaust and the Formation of Cosmopolitan Memory”, European Journal of Social Theory 5, 1 (2002), 87-106.
13 Politics of Memory II Aleida Assmann, “Europe: A Community of Memory?” GHI Bulletin 40 (2007), 11-25. Tzvetan Todorov, “Memory as Remedy for Evil”, Journal of International Criminal Justice 7 (2009), 447-462.
14 Paper submission III
15 Review of the semester
16 Final Exam
Course Notes/Textbooks

Books and articles listed above

All course readings are available at the University Library and as open sources.
Suggested Readings/Materials

 

EVALUATION SYSTEM

Semester Activities Number Weigthing
Participation
1
20
Laboratory / Application
Field Work
Quizzes / Studio Critiques
Portfolio
Homework / Assignments
3
60
Presentation / Jury
1
20
Project
Seminar / Workshop
Oral Exam
Midterm
Final Exam
Total

Weighting of Semester Activities on the Final Grade
5
100
Weighting of End-of-Semester Activities on the Final Grade
Total

ECTS / WORKLOAD TABLE

Semester Activities Number Duration (Hours) Workload
Course Hours
(Including exam week: 16 x total hours)
16
3
48
Laboratory / Application Hours
(Including exam week: 16 x total hours)
16
Study Hours Out of Class
10
8
80
Field Work
Quizzes / Studio Critiques
Portfolio
Homework / Assignments
3
25
Presentation / Jury
1
22
Project
Seminar / Workshop
Oral Exam
Midterms
Final Exams
    Total
225

 

COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES AND PROGRAM QUALIFICATIONS RELATIONSHIP

#
 Program Competencies/Outcomes
* Contribution Level
1
2
3
4
5
1

To be able to improve and deepen the theoretical and conceptual proficiencies on Political Science and International Relations.

 X
2

To be able to evaluate critically and analytically the relationships between various factors in the discipline of Political Science and International Relations such as structures, actors, institutions and culture at an advanced level.
3

To be able to determine the theoretical and empirical gaps in Political Science and International Relations literature and gain the ability of questioning at an advanced level.

 X
4

To be able to gain the ability to develop innovative, leading and original arguments in order to fill the gaps in Political Science and International Relations literature.

 X
5

To be able to gather, analyze, and interpret the data by using advanced qualitative or quantitative research methods in Political Science and International Relations.
6

To be able to develop original academic works and publish scientific articles in refereed national or international indexed journals in the field of Political Science and International Relations.

 X
7

To be able to describe individual research and contemporary developments in Political Science and International Relations in written, oral, and visual forms.

 X
8

To be able to take responsibility in an individual capacity and/or as part of a team in generating innovative and analytical solutions to the problems that arise in relation to the politics in daily life.

 X
9

To be able to develop projects in determining the institutional and political instruments for conflict resolution in national and international politics.
10

To be able to prepare an original thesis in Political Science and International Relations based on scientific criteria.

 X
11

To be able to follow new research and developments, publish scientific articles and participate the debates in academic meetings in Political Science and International Relations through a foreign language.

 X
12

To be able to have ethical, social and scientific values in the stages throughout the processes of gathering, interpreting, disseminating and implementing data relevant to Political Science and International Relations.

X

*1 Lowest, 2 Low, 3 Average, 4 High, 5 Highest