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Module details for 2025/26.

30 credits

FHEQ Level 7 (Masters)

Module Outline

This unit produces a critical, interdisciplinary take on war, violence and security from feminist, queer and anticolonial perspectives that foreground the “intersectionality” of different power relations. How are different forms and sites of violence connected? How do technologies of race, gender, sex, and disability shape understandings of certain practices of violence as political, lawful, legitimate and/or necessary? What are the ethics of researching and reproducing violence and suffering of ‘Others’? What are the prospects and limits of (International) law for peace and justice?
Concepts and themes we explore include: body/flesh; militarisation/martial politics; biopolitics/necropolitics; erotics of colonial conquest & slavery; military masculinities; drones & ‘posthuman warfare’; ‘humanitarian’ warfare; sexual/ized violence and torture; women & queers as agents of violence.

Additional Learning Tasks

1. Enhanced research skills developed throught independent work on the long essay and on class presentations.

2. Improved communication skills, both written and verbal, as developed through the long essay and regular class discussion.

3. Improved analytical skills, developed through a focus on difficult issues in both empirical and conceptual terms.

Library

Core readings will include:
Miranda Alison, 'Women as Agents of Political Violence: Gendering Security', Security
Dialogue, 35(4), 2004: 447-463.
Aaron Belkin, Bring Me Men: Military Masculinity and the Benign Facade of American
Empire, 1898-2001. London: Hurst, 2012.
R. Charli Carpenter, '¿Women and Children First¿: Gender, Norms, and Humanitarian
Evacuation in the Balkans, 1991-95', International Organization, 57(4), 2003: 661-694.
Cynthia Cockburn, 'The Continuum of Violence: A Gender Perspective on War and
Peace', in Wenona Giles and Jennifer Hyndman (eds.) Sites of Violence: Gender and
Conflict Zones. Berkeley, CA: The University of California Press, 2004.
Cynthia Enloe, Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives.
Berkeley, CA: The University of California Press, 2000.
Joshua S. Goldstein, War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice
Versa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Valerie M. Hudson et al. Sex and World Peace. New York, NY: Columbia University
Press, 2012.
Adam Jones, `Straight as a Rule: Heteronormativity, Gendercide, and the Noncombatant
Male¿, Men and Masculinities, 8(4), 2006: 451-469.
Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest.
London: Routledge, 1995.
Katharine H. S. Moon, Sex Among Allies: Military Prostitution in U.S.-Korea Relations.
New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1996.
Alexandra Stiglmayer (ed.) Mass Rape: The War Against Women in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1994.
J. Ann Tickner, Gendering World Politics: Issues and Approaches in the Post-Cold War
Era. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2001.
Jacqui True, The Political Economy of Violence Against Women. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2012.
Elisabeth Jean Wood, 'Variation in Sexual Violence During War', Politics and Society,
34(3), 2006: 307-342.

Module learning outcomes

Identify and summarise core academic debates about gender, sex, race and violence in international politics.

Critically assess and apply core concepts for the study of violence in global politics from intersectional feminist, queer and anticolonial perspectives.

Critically interpret recent empirical and theoretical controversies related to global patterns of gender and violence.

Critically interpret and communicate for wider publics recent empirical and theoretical controversies related to global patterns of gender, sexuality, race and violence.

View timetable

Timing

Submission deadlines may vary for different types of assignment/groups of students.

Weighting

Coursework components (if listed) total 100% of the overall coursework weighting value.

How to read the week pattern

The numbers indicate the weeks of the term and how many events take place each week.

Mrs Daniella Kiernan

Assess convenor
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Dr Melanie Richter-Montpetit

Convenor
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