Political Power and Violence: A Toxic Relationship
Edgar Illas
Spanish & Portuguese
This course explores the enigmatic connections between violence and political power. Specifically, we will try to understand how the destructive periods of war turn into productive moments that generate new political spaces. Our guiding questions, in other words, will be: what takes place when violence recedes and political power emerges? Is politics a peaceful resolution of conflict or is it a continuation of war by other means? Does politics necessarily entail the previous killing of other groups of people? While our examination will draw from military and political history, our focus will be on the theoretical and humanist aspects of the connection between war and politics. We will study various cases of imperial and state foundation, with special emphasis on the formation of the US. The course will include two main types of materials. First, we will read theoretical reflections on the meaning of war and politics by classic and modern political thinkers such as Machiavelli, Carl Von Clausewitz, Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt, and Michel Foucault. Second, we will analyze literary works and films (by Corman McCarthy, Ernst Jünger, John Ford, Orson Welles, David Cronenberg, among others) that will represent for us the painful, and often toxic!, dilemmas of political violence.
Catalog Information: HON-H 236 USE OF FORCE