PHIL 022.  Philosophies of Violence

M, 1:15, Professor Ahmed

This course takes as its starting point the reality that the world we inhabit is fundamentally marked by violence. Though this is an increasingly widespread observation, the contours of what constitute “violence” are-and have always been-a matter of contestation. How are determinations about legitimate vs. illegitimate violence made, and by whom? How do the historical violences of colonialism, indigenous genocide, and chattel slavery persist in the present? What makes one act of violence “freedom-fighting” and another “terroristic”? What is the relationship between violent and nonviolent resistance? Is politics really, simply, violence by other means? These are the sorts of questions that we will explore over the course of the semester, drawing on a range of seminal writings by such figures as Karl Marx, Max Weber, Walter Benjamin, Frantz Fanon, Hannah Arendt, and Aimé Césaire, as well as more contemporary writings in social and political philosophy. The aim of this course is to explore a plurality of robust, historically- and materially-informed analytic frameworks by which we might more holistically think through the multiple modalities of violence that define our present.
Prerequisite: First- and second-year students must complete one introductory level PHIL course before enrolling in this course.