AMST 282 - Feminist Security Studies: Reimagining Safety and Demilitarization

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

Who gets to feel safe? Which bodies are deemed worthy of protecting and which bodies are marked as the enemy? What costs does security come at and to whom? Transnational feminists have long made the connection between US apparatuses of state violence to systems of patriarchy, capitalism, ethno-nationalism, heteronormativity, xenophobia, and ableism among others. In this course, we explore how the US state secures safety through the global domination of the “Other” and reimagines what safety could look like without the use of state violence. Through the lens of US empire building, we examine how the ideology of militarism operates through the military industrial complex–a global system that produces and maintains security through state violence under capitalism. Drawing on material from Critical Military Studies, labor history, Transnational Feminism, Critical Refugee Studies, and Queer Theory, we explore the concept and practice of security through engagement with academic texts, news and policy briefings, film, photography, podcasts, and plays as a way to reimagine safety without state violence. Amy Chin.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS