Call Number | 11046 |
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Day & Time Location |
T 10:10am-12:00pm 207 Knox Hall |
Points | 4 |
Grading Mode | Standard |
Approvals Required | None |
Instructor | Timothy Mitchell |
Type | SEMINAR |
Method of Instruction | In-Person |
Course Description | This course will be the first part of a two part introduction to theoretical approaches to modern social science and cultural studies in Asian and African contexts. The first course will focus primarily on methodological and theoretical problems in the fields broadly described as historical social sciences - which study historical trends, and political, economic and social institutions and processes. The course will start with discussions regarding the origins of the modern social sciences and the disputes about the nature of social science knowledge. In the next section it will focus on definitions and debates about the concept of modernity. It will go on to analyses of some fundamental concepts used in modern social and historical analyses: concepts of social action, political concepts like state, power, hegemony, democracy, nationalism; economic concepts like the economy, labor, market, capitalism, and related concepts of secularity/secularism, representation, and identity. The teaching will be primarily through close reading of set texts, followed by a discussion. A primary concern of the course will be to think about problems specific to the societies studied by scholars of Asia and Africa: how to use a conceptual language originally stemming from reflection on European modernity in thinking about societies which have quite different historical and cultural characteristics. |
Web Site | Vergil |
Department | Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies |
Enrollment | 6 students (25 max) as of 5:08PM Saturday, September 7, 2024 |
Subject | Middle East |
Number | GR5000 |
Section | 001 |
Division | Graduate School of Arts and Sciences |
Note | Class is open to MESAAS students only. |
Section key | 20233MDES5000G001 |