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Course Description and Goals
This course is designed to investigate how the attacks of September 11th, 2001 ushered in “the age of terror,” in which “security” fundamentally altered critical and ongoing conversations about the politics and ethics in a representative democracy. Using as a model the course AR199: “Making Sense of September 11th,” we will explore, among other topics: 1) language and democratic discourse in the age of terror, 2) representations of 9/11 and other acts of terrorism in literature and the arts, 3) religious and ethical discourse about the use of violence. This course is designed to satisfy the “L” requirement, as well as suffice for a course for the PJHR (Peace, Justice and Human Rights) major. In considering the texts of the course, we will ask key questions:
· What was 9/11? How have artists and intellectuals narrated 9/11 and its meanings, and do they differ from the mainstream narratives of the terrorist attacks of 9/11? What are the central terms in these narrations and how are they defined?
· In light of Edward Said’s notion that “nations are narrations,” how has the “war on terror” altered the U.S.’s narrative of itself in the world? Relatedly, has this new security narrative altered our conversations about freedom and democracy, as well as our domestic and foreign policy?
· How does the new U.S. (and Western) narrative of the “age of terror” and the national-security affect the Global South? To what degree is this new frame a new articulation of post-Cold War political alignments?
The first reading assignment is the Introduction to Jean Elshtain’s book, Just War Against Terror. I selected this reading, in part, to keep Dr. Metres and me honest. At one point, Elshtain writes about the “disappointing words from many of our intellectuals, academics, and religious leaders.” I believe she has in mind the kind of criticisms of U.S foreign policy and the pursuit of the “war on terror” that Dr. Metres and I have made over the last ten years. It is important that students hear other voices and be introduced to other perspectives. Elshtain offers a nice counterpoint to some of the other material we will cover in class. More importantly, however, I wanted to get before us, right from the start, some reflections on the relationship between responses to September 11, 2001 and views of human nature. Notice that in the very first sentence Elshtain takes a swipe at “humanists” who assume that we are rational by nature. In the second paragraph, she speaks unapologetically about evil. What assumptions about human life are built into the use of the language of evil and sin as opposed to, say, psychology and sickness?
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