Humanitarian Affects 2014- theory heavy

SHUM 4876, FGSS 4876, ANTH 4176, GOVT 4745 Fall 2014, Cornell University Professor Saida Hodžić [email protected] Course Meetings: Th 12.20-2.15 in A.D. White House 210 Office Hours: TH 2.30-4.30pm and by appointment, A.D. White House 309 (on nice days, in the garden behind the building). Sign-up sheets will be posted on my office door. Humanitarian Affects Liberal feminists and political theorists argue that sentiments such as compassion and empathy have the capacity to alert us to suffering, injustice, and oppression, and thus incite transformative political action. This interdisciplinary seminar explores the challenges to this theory by staging a conversation between postcolonial, feminist, and queer theories of affect, and anthropological ethnographies of humanitarianism. We will focus on texts that show how sentiments have become an essential force in national and global politics: public sentiments are mobilized across the political spectrum: to defend borders, wage wars, grant asylum to refugees, provide medical care and disaster relief, inspire feminist activism, and galvanize oppositional activist movements and counterpublics. Our main interest will be in exploring the practical workings and political contours of moral, liberal sentiments such as compassion, care, and concern, analyzing how they take hold in humanitarian projects. We will ask: What kinds of worlds do humanitarian ethical projects and political regimes make and unmake? What is the force of humanitarian sentiments? What relations of power are they imbricated in? How are they gendered, sexualized, and racialized? How are militarization, violence, humanitarianism, and progressive political projects co-constituted? Throughout the course, we will use sentiment and affect as lenses for analyzing the intersections between humanitarianism and post-colonial and neoliberal regimes of governance, as theorized and critiqued by feminist scholars, and as explored in ethnographic and historical texts. We shall explore how humanitarian affects mediate access to resources and survival, as well as political agency, subjectivity, citizenship, and belonging. Goals and Objectives This course is designed for advanced undergraduate and graduate students interested in developing an informed and critical perspective on public sentiments and humanitarianism. We will work at the interstices of the humanities and the social sciences. The interdisciplinary character of the course means that you must be open to gaining insights from engaging with and struggling with both theoretical and empirical texts. In turn, the course will enhance your ability to articulate relationships between theoretical concepts and ethnographic particularities of historically situated worlds and postcolonial situations. Next to introducing you to the fields of scholarship outlined above, course assignments are designed to help you discipline and enhance your analytical skills. Argument analysis papers will set the ground for thoughtful discussion, and will help you practice close, rigorous, and productive reading of texts that can be generative for your own work. Course papers will allow you to practice how to discern and develop theoretical conceptualizations, produce socially situated analysis attuned to power relations, and develop a reflexive relationship to your own politics of affective writing. Registration and Expectations This 4-credit course course is open to advanced undergraduate and graduate students from a broad range of disciplines. It does not permit auditors. The waiting list will be processed on a first-come, first-serve basis. The interdisciplinary, mixed undergraduate and graduate character of the course will challenge you to be open to a broad range of perspectives as well as to speak with clarity, being mindful of fellow students varied backgrounds. When contributing to discussion, briefly and concisely explain any concepts, ideas, and author references not introduced in the course. This discussion-oriented seminar is dynamic and participatory, as well as reading and writing intensive. Expect to spend 10 hours a week outside of class on course readings and assignments. Your contribution, curiosity, interest, and serious engagement with the material will be crucial. You will read texts, give presentations, discuss your insights, and develop your own arguments. We will also have the opportunity to have skype conversations with some of the authors whose texts we shall read. Contact information for at least one classmate: COURSE TEXTS We will read select texts available on blackboard as well as the required books listed below. It is a requirement of this course that you bring a physical copy (i.e. not an Ebook) of readings to class on the day that they are assigned as we will be reading them closely and referring to specific pages and textual passages. All required and recommended books are available for purchase at the Cornell Store, and are placed on reserve in the Uris Library. The required books are placed on a 2-hour reserve; please be considerate of your classmates when you borrow them. As we will read selections from a large number of texts, you may consider purchasing them used. Make sure to purchase the required books well in advance of the assigned date. Adams, Vincanne. 2013. Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith: New Orleans in the Wake of Katrina. Durham: Duke University Press. Ahmed, Sara. 2010. The Promise of Happiness. Durham: Duke University Press. ---. 2012. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Routledge. Berlant, Lauren, 2011. Cruel Optimism. Durham: Duke University Press. Bornstein, Erica. 2012. Disquieting Gifts: Humanitarianism in New Delhi. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Cabot, Heath. 2014. On the Doorstep of Europe: Asylum and Citizenship in Greece. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Fassin, Didier. 2012. Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present. Berkeley: University of California Press. Feldman, Ilana and Miriam Ticktin, Eds. 2010. In the Name of Humanity: The Government of Threat and Care. Durham: Duke University Press. Mathers, Kathryn. 2011. Travel, Humanitarianism, and Becoming American in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan. Redfield, Peter. 2013. Life in Crisis: The Ethical Journey of Doctors Without Borders. Berkeley: University of California Press. Scherz, China. 2014. Having People, Having Heart: Charity, Sustainable Development, and Problems of Dependence in Central Uganda. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stewart, Kathleen. 2007. Ordinary Affects. Durham: Duke University Press. Ticktin, Miriam. 2011. Casualties of Care: Immigration and the Politics of Humanitarianism in France. Berkeley: University of California Press. Woodward, Kathleen. 2008. Statistical Panic: Cultural Politics and Poetics of the Emotions. Durham: Duke University Press. COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING ● Active Participation Based on Thorough Engagement with Course Texts Because participation is the life of this seminar, you are expected to come to each class having carefully read all required texts and being ready to contribute to discussion. Your comments or questions need to be focused on specific concepts, textual passages, or larger arguments. I know that some of you are shy or uncomfortable speaking in front of others, especially in a mixed undergraduate-graduate seminar. To enhance your ability to participate, write down questions about the text as you are reading it, and bring them to my attention on blackboard, by email, or in person prior to class. Also take ample advantage of participating by posting comments online in response to your fellow students’ weekly analysis papers (see below). The participation grade will also take into account attendance and punctuality. 25% of final grade. ● Brief Argument Analysis Papers: a total of ten (out of twelve possible ones). Submit your first post in week 2 or 3 in hard copy so I can provide you with written feedback. All subsequent papers due by 8 pm on Wednesdays on blackboard. Aim for ¾ of a single-spaced page. The purpose of this assignment is to prepare you for course discussion. The posts will help you understand the course material and will make our conversations well-informed, focused, and challenging. You are encouraged to read each other’s contributions online after you have posted yours, and must make sure not to plagiarize them. Your task is twofold: 1) State the main arguments and contributions of the text in your own words, and explicate how the author arrives at them and supports them. 2) Reflect on the theoretical and critical conceptualizations of public sentiments (through September) and humanitarianism (in October and November) and explicate how the author arrives at them and supports them. These papers are NOT essays, but brief exercises in analytical thought. Do not write an introduction or a conclusion or try to make paper smooth. Jump straight in by beginning, for instance, with “The author’s main argument is…” Or, “One of the main contributions is a conceptualization of….” These papers are NOT a place to write an evaluation of the text’s style or likability, such as in “I did not like the author’s jargon.” 25% of final grade for graduate students, 35% for undergraduate students. ● Blackboard Comments on Argument Analysis Papers: a total of ten. In a brief commentary of a few sentences, respond in a substantive manner to another student’s argument analysis paper. Throughout the course, you will be asked up to open up course discussion by reflecting on what you learned by reading another student’s paper. (Part of participation grade). Undergraduate students will choose only one of the following paper topics, graduate students will write both. ● Paper I: The Conceptual and the Empirical Choose two course texts and bring them in conversation with one another. How does the theoretical or conceptual apparatus of the one text help illuminate the empirical context or claims of another? How does the empirical, ethnographic argument speak back to theory and articulate its own? 6-8 pages, TNR 12 point, double-spaced. Due any time before October 17. 10% of final grade. ● Paper II: Ethnographic/Feminist Sentiments: The Politics of Affective Writing Choose one course text, different from those you analyzed in the first paper. What kinds of sentiments are generated, mobilized, and performed by the text itself? How are they reflected on by the author, if they are? What do we learn about the author’s positioning and power relations by paying attention to affect? 6-8 pages, TNR 12 point, double-spaced. Due any time before November 14. 10% of final grade. ● Final Project and Paper: Public Affects and Humanitarianism in Practice Choose one humanitarian or public sentiments project and analyze an instance of humanitarian affect in practice using ideas and tools developed in the course. You may draw on a wide range of materials and sources – from self-representations of specific organizations and movements, to your ethnographic observations, or representations in the news media, art, or popular culture. The final project includes a multi-media presentation, a paper draft, and comments to peers that will be explained in more detail later. Multi-Media Presentation: Prepare a 5 minute multi-media presentation highlighting the most relevant argument you propose to make in the final paper. A sign-up sheet will be circulated in late September. Paper Draft: A ten-page paper draft is due to assigned peer reader on 11/30 by email, cc to me. Peer Comments: Annotated comments on the margins as well as one paragraph or several bullet points with feedback due on 12/3 by email, cc to me, followed by an in-class feedback and conversation. 12-14 pages, TNR 12 point, double-spaced. Due December 10. 30% of final grade. COURSE SCHEDULE Some modifications are possible. August 28: Introduction to the Course: Public Affects Ann Cvetkovich and Ann Pellegrini. 2003. Introduction to “Public Sentiments,” The Scholar and Feminist Online 2:1. Fassin, Didier. 2012. Introduction to Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present. Berkeley: University of California Press. Theorizing Public Feelings in Political Practice and Everyday Life 9/4 Berlant, Lauren, Ed. 2004. Compassion: The Culture and Politics of an Emotion. New York: Routledge. Introduction and Chapter 1. Berlant, Lauren, 2011. Cruel Optimism. Durham: Duke University Press. Introduction and Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 7. ---. 2000. The Subject of True Feeling: Pain, Privacy and Politics. In Sara Ahmed et al., Eds. Transformations: Thinking through Feminism. London: Routledge, 33-47. 9/11 Woodward, Kathleen. 2008. Statistical Panic: Cultural Politics and Poetics of the Emotions. Durham: Duke University Press. Introduction and Chapters 4, 6, and 7. Povinelli, Elizabeth. 1998. The State of Shame: Australian Multiculturalism and the Crisis of Indigenous Citizenship. Critical Inquiry 24(2): 575-610. 9/18 Ahmed, Sara. 2010. The Promise of Happiness. Durham: Duke University Press. Chapters 2, 3, and 4. ---. 2012. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Routledge. Introduction and Chapters, 1, 4, 5, and the conclusion. 9/25 Stewart, Kathleen. 2007. Ordinary Affects. Durham: Duke University Press. Behar, Ruth. 1997. The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that Breaks your Heart. Boston: Beacon Press. Chapters 1 and 6. Public Feelings and Moral Sentiments: Ethnographies of Humanitarianism 10/ 2 Fassin, Didier. 2012. Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present. Berkeley: University of California Press. 10/9 Redfield, Peter. 2013. Life in Crisis: The Ethical Journey of Doctors without Borders. Berkeley: University of California Press. 10/16 Ticktin, Miriam. 2011. Casualties of Care: Immigration and the Politics of Humanitarianism in France. Berkeley: University of California Press. 10/23 Cabot, Heath. 2014. On the Doorstep of Europe: Asylum and Citizenship in Greece. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Chapters TBA. Bornstein, Erica. 2012. Disquieting Gifts: Humanitarianism in New Delhi. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 10/30 Feldman, Ilana and Miriam Ticktin, Eds. 2010. In the Name of Humanity: The Government of Threat and Care. Durham: Duke University Press. Introduction and Chapters by Wilson, Malkki, Feldman, Biehl, Jain, and Petryna. 11/6 Mathers, Kathryn. 2011. Travel, Humanitarianism, and Becoming American in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan. 11/13 Scherz, China. 2014. Having People, Having Heart: Charity, Sustainable Development, and Problems of Dependence in Central Uganda. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 11/20 Adams, Vincanne. 2013. Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith: New Orleans in the Wake of Katrina. Durham: Duke University Press. 11/27 No class, Thanksgiving. Work on your paper. Paper due to assigned peer reader on 12/1. 12/6 No readings. Peer comments exchange. COURSE POLICIES AND OTHER RELEVANT INFORMATION  Take advantage of office hours! Office hours are an opportunity to get clarifications about the course material or to discuss questions or ideas about the texts or the larger field of scholarship we address in the course. Asking questions and seeking help when needed is a skill crucial to success. Do not hesitate to come to my office hours, email me, or talk to me after class.  Most problems can be resolved if you address them as soon as you are aware of them. If you have a potential life circumstance that may interrupt your ability to function in the class, please tell me immediately.  Attendance: You are expected to attend each class meeting and arrive on time. More than one unexcused absence will affect your final grade. The only valid excuses for missing class are: religious holidays, medical absences, and deaths in the family (or similar emergencies). These must be documented by an official note – please refrain from emailing me if you do not have documentation. Athletes should submit a list of schedule conflicts at the beginning of the semester. ∙ Being more than ten minutes late to class counts as an absence. Repeated tardiness will also be counted as an absence. ∙ If you are sick with a potentially infectious disease, such as a cold or a flu, stay at home. That’s what the one permitted absence is for. ∙ If you miss 4 or more sessions without a documented, valid reason, you will fail the class.  Late work policy: All work must be submitted on time. Extensions are available only in documented instances of illness or similarly serious extenuating circumstances. Once during the semester, you may have a two-day extension on any written work as long as you email me 12 hours in advance. No reasons needed.  Cell phones and laptops: Please turn them off and put them away. Using them is rude and disruptive and will cost you my good will. If you must use a laptop to take notes due to a documented medical circumstance, you may ask me for permission. I’ll ask you to sign a statement certifying that you will disable the wireless connection while you are in class. Readings: You need to read each assignment before class. I rarely lecture, and when I do, I do not summarize the texts but contextualize them. Always bring a physical copy of the readings to class. Many of our readings are quite difficult. Read them more than once, and mark them up with a pen or pencil. Responding to a text in this active way will help you get the most out of it. Annotating a text helps you accomplish several tasks at once: ∙ It helps you understand the logical progression of a work, and see how the author organizes their arguments. ∙ It highlights places where you don’t understand the argument or where you question how the author is making a point. This shows you where to linger longer, and pay more attention. ∙ It helps you move from passive reception to active engagement – analyzing, evaluating and synthesizing the material. Write down questions about the text as you are reading it and bring them to my attention on blackboard, by email, or in person prior to class. Email and Blackboard: Please check your Cornell email daily, as I frequently email announcements, reminders, and important changes. You are responsible for all information I send over email. Check the Blackboard website frequently, as it will contain announcements, assignment guidelines, links to relevant material, and so on. I will usually respond to your messages within 24-48 hours on business days. If I don’t reply after 3 days, please feel free to send me a follow up email. It is always a good idea to be polite in email messages to your professors. Accommodations for students with disabilities: In compliance with the Cornell University policy and equal access laws, I am available to discuss appropriate academic accommodations that may be required for student with disabilities. Requests for academic accommodations are to be made during the first three weeks of the semester, except for unusual circumstances, so arrangements can be made. Students are encouraged to register with Student Disability Services to verify their eligibility for appropriate accommodations. Grade questions: If you think you earned a better grade than the one you received, you are welcome to ask for clarification. To do so, you must first submit a request in writing (email is fine). Your request needs to explain your question or concern and support it with appropriate evidence. Note: this procedure does not apply if you simply want advice on how to write a better paper. Please email me or come to my office hours with such questions any time. Plagiarism Policy: Don’t do it. If you have any doubts about what constitutes plagiarism, if you find yourself lost in the research and writing process, or otherwise tempted to violate the academic code, please email me and I will help you. You are expected to abide by Cornell’s Code of Academic Integrity (http://cuinfo.cornell.edu/Academic/AIC.html). Next to facing formal consequences stipulated by the Code, you will lose my good will if you cheat, plagiarize, or lie.  All work is to be your own and prepared specifically for this class. All sources must be acknowledged. All phrases or sentences that are not your own must be in quotation marks with the author, year, and page number of the text cited.  Cheating on an exam or plagiarizing on a paper will result in an F/0 points for the assignment. If I deem the dishonesty egregious, it will result in an F for the course. All violations of the Code are reported to the Academic Integrity Hearing Board.  Many of your papers will be submitted to Turnitin.com, which is plagiarism-detection software. This is an incentive that prevents any possible temptation to cut corners by plagiarizing.  If you are unsure whether or not you are plagiarizing, please contact me prior to submitting your paper, and I will be happy to help you. Here is a helpful website that tells you how to avoid plagiarism: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02/.  Ground rules for discussion across difference: To be completed in class after reading the participation rubric. Classroom Participation Rubric Adapted from www46.homepage.villanova.edu/john.immerwahr/TP101/EvDay/discussion%20rubric.pdf. Strong work Needs development Unsatisfactory work and unacceptable behavior Listening Listens actively and respectfully. Responds thoughtfully to others. Sometimes demonstrates lack of attention to others. Projects lack of interest in, or disrespect of, others. Preparation Arrives fully prepared with all assignments completed. Sometimes arrives unprepared or with only superficial preparation. Exhibits little evidence of having read or thought about material. Quality of Contributions Questions and comments are: -relevant - reflect thoughtful engagement with assigned texts (misunderstandings do this too!). - reflect thoughtful engagement with the remarks of the instructors and other students. – draw connections to other readings, evaluate the argument, provide alternate interpretations, and so on. Questions and comments: - are sometimes vague or irrelevant. - are mostly about facts (as opposed to ideas/arguments). Questions and comments: - betray lack of preparation - betray lack of thoughtful engagement with texts and with other students’ remarks - are often vague and irrelevant. Impact on seminar Questions and comments help move conversation forward Questions and comments do little to move conversation forward. Questions, comments, and other behaviors never move conversation forward or actively harm it. Frequency of participation Actively participates at appropriate times. Sometimes tunes out, or sometimes dominates the conversation. Seldom participates and is unengaged. Speaks out of turn or interrupts others. Recommended BOOKS The following texts are chosen for your further perusal and will not be discussed in class. They are highly relevant to the course and will be useful for your final papers. Berlant, Lauren, Ed. 2004. Compassion: The Culture and Politics of an Emotion. New York: Routledge. Behar, Ruth. 1996. The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart. Boston: Beacon Press. Bornstein, Erica and Peter Redfield. 2011. Forces of Compassion: Humanitarianism Between Ethics and Politics. School for Advanced Research Press. Hage, Ghassan. 2003. Against Paranoid Nationalism: Searching for Hope in a Shrinking Society. Pluto Press. James, Erica. 2010. Democratic Insecurities: Violence, Trauma, and Intervention in Haiti. Berkeley: University of California Press. Boltanski, Luc. 1999. Distant Suffering: Morality, Media and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gilroy, Paul. 2006. Postcolonial Melancholia. New York: Columbia University Press. David Eng and David Kazanjian, eds. 2002. Loss: The Politics of Mourning. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hartman, Saidiya. 1997. Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America. Oxford University Press. Hartman, Saidiya. 2008. Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Katz, Jonathan. 2013. The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster. Palgrave Macmillan. Sontag, Susan. 2004. Regarding the Pain of Others. Picador. Kennedy, David. 2004. The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism. Princeton University Press. Miyazaki, Hiro. 2006. The Method of Hope: Anthropology, Philosophy, and Fijian Knowledge. Stanford University Press. Munoz, Jose Esteban. 2006. Feeling Brown, Feeling Down: Latina Affect, the Performativity of Race, and the Depressive Position. Signs 31(3): 675-688. Eng, David and Shinhee Han. 2000. A Dialogue on Racial Melancholia. Psychoanalytic Dialogues. 10(4):667–700. PAGE \* MERGEFORMAT 3