Political Science 791D - S-Soc & Poli Theories/Decol

As a core course in the proposed Grad Certificate in Decolonial Global Studies, this course will serve as an advanced introduction to political and social theories of coloniality and decolonization. Reading key texts within an enlarged conception of what constitutes postcolonial and decolonial thought, the seminar will address some of the most fundamental questions in social, political, and cultural theory (e.g. patriarchy, globalization, the state, racial capitalism, subjectivity, knowledge production, democracy, nationalism) from a transdisciplinary lens. Foregrounding the intersections of our own disciplinary perspectives - political theory and historical sociology - the seminar will provide an opportunity to foreground how decolonial perspectives orient both distinctive modes of critique and the search alternative possibilities to the nation-state form oriented around patriarchal domination, territorial sovereignty, capital accumulation, and rights-based individualism.