International Studies II
Description
The course is a continuance of the issues presented in International Studies I but can be taken without previously taking that course. In this course we contend with how critical theorists look anew at how social power reproduces itself. This course examines historically how different ideas regarding development, modernity, modernization and progress evolved in Europe and in the United States and how these ideas guided economic and social policies around the world. Additional topics covered include postmodernism, post-Fordism, post-colonialism, and post-structuralism. One of a the major theoretical shifts of this century has been the calling into question of the authoritativeness of knowledge. This course will delve into a critical analysis of such key concepts as the ‘world-system’, ‘hegemony’, and ‘empire’. The purpose of the course is gaining literacy, devising critiques and deriving inspiration in some areas of overlap among political economy, geopolitics and studies of representations of inferiorized otherness .