War and Social Theory

In this class, we will think about the various ways in which philosophers, social theorists, historians and anthropologists have thought about war. More specifically, the course focuses on a set of key themes and questions that have been central to such writings: the nature of violence and the question of responsibility or accountability, shifting technologies of warfare (including, technologies of representation), and the phenomenology and aftermath of warfare, for civilians and for combatants. The questions that drive this seminar are theoretical and historical, as well as ethical and political. For example, how do shifting understandings of the trauma of soldiers shape ethical questions and political conversations regarding perpetration and the question of responsibility? Or, when we think warfare through new technologies (cinematic, action at a distance) from whose perspective are we theorizing or trying to understand the experience of war? How might we analyze the very different affective responses that different forms of violence-or of perpetration -elicit?