210102 SE M3: Political Theories and Research on Theory (2020W)

This discussion-based graduate course, which will exclusively be taught digitally, takes an interdisciplinary approach to explore literatures that critically engage with questions political mobilization, organization, claims-making, and critique in fields including political theory, urban geography, urban planning, and critical curatorial and museum studies. Discussing examples from Austria, Australia, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, United States of America, and Singapore, the seminar aims to provide an international and intersectional lens on the themes of political organizing.

Diving into the macro-political level of international political organizations such as the United Nations and UNESCO as well as micro-political levels of activism to be found in artist-run spaces and initiatives who self-organize to survive in the age of neoliberal urban politics, the seminar takes us to a variety of places and people to discuss the manifold expressions and forms of ‘the political’.

Learning Objectives
- to grasp the interdisciplinary political potential of arts and culture and its multiple socio-political, spatial, material, affective and psychosocial implications on societal change;
- to identify multiple levels of governmental decision-making and power where arts and culture are used and managed to foster change;
- to understand the multiple political effects of artistic and creative practices on understandings of identity formation, nation-building, citizenship, economic development, urban growth, and its subsequent critiques;
- to gain insight into various creative, self-organized, spontaneous, ephemeral, partially unsanctioned, or illegal practices of art-making in public places and spaces.