Syllabus 2009

kbumiller — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:21:38 +0000

Syllabus 2009 Kristin Bumiller Tuesday, 10/21/2008, at 4:21 PM

Amherst College

Political Science 56

Spring Semester 2009

Regulating Citizenship

Professor Kristin Bumiller

Departments of Political Science and Women’s and Gender Studies

Course Description:

This course considers a fundamental issue that faces all democratic societies: how do we decide when and whether to include or exclude individuals from the rights and privileges of citizenship? In the context of immigration policy, this is an issue of state power to control boundaries and preserve national identity. The state also exercises penal power that justifies segregating and/or denying privileges to individuals faced with criminal sanctions. Citizenship is regulated not only through the direct exercise of force by the state, but also by educational systems, social norms, and private organizations. Exclusion is also the result of poverty, disability, and discrimination based on gender, race, age, and ethnic identity. This course will describe and examine the many forms of exclusion and inclusion that occur in contemporary democracies and raise questions about the purpose and justice of these processes. We will also explore models of social change that would promote more inclusive societies. This course will be conducted inside the Hampshire County Jail and House of Corrections and enroll an equal number of Amherst students and residents of the facility. This “Inside-Out” model for teaching within a correctional institution was developed by Lori Pompa at Temple University.

Course Requirements:

Students are required to complete the assigned readings before class and come prepared to discuss them. After each class students must complete a short summary of the reading and discussion (at least one page) to be turned in the following week. Class participation will be structured to give everyone the opportunity to participate and contribute. Excellence in class participation will be taken into consideration when determining the final grade. A group project will be due the last week of the semester. The project will be presented in class and should culminate in an approximately ten page paper.

Course Materials:

The articles will be duplicated and distributed in a reading packet. In addition, the following four books are required:

Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism

Zygmunt Bauman, Wasted Lives

J.M. Coetzee, The Lives & Times of Michael K.

Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

Bruce Western, Punishment and Inequality

Weekly Reading Assignments:

January 28

PREPARATION FOR THE COURSE

(Amherst and Hampshire County Students Meet Separately)

Film: The Visitor

February 4

THEORIZING CITIZENSHIP

John Locke, Two Treatises of Government. Book II, Chapters I and II, VII, IX

Sheldon Wolin, “Fugitive Democracy” in Seyla Benhabib, ed. Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political, pp. 31-45

February 11

LOSING CITIZENSHIP

Franz Kafka, “Before the Law”

J.M. Coetzee, The Lives & Times of Michael K.

February 18

TOTALITARIANISM

Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism

Richard J. Bernstein, “The Origins of Totalitarianism: Not History, but Politics,” Social Research, Summer 2002, pp. 381-401

February 25

EXCLUDING CITIZENS

Aihwa Ong, Buddha is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America, pages 48-65.

Film: The Killing Fields

March 4

EDUCATION AND DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP

John Dewey, Democracy and Education, Chapter Seven: “The Democratic Conception in Education”

Henry A. Giroux, “Schooling, Citizenship, and the Struggle for Democracy,” in Schooling and the Struggle for Public Life

Peter McLaren and Juan S, Munoz, “Contesting Whiteness: Critical Perspectives on the Struggle for Social Justice,” in Carlos J. Ovando and Peter McLaren, Multiculturalism and Bilingual Education

March 11

GENDER AND CITIZENSHIP

Phil Scraton, Power, Conflict and Criminalisation, “Self Harm and Suicide in a Women’s Prison,” Chapter 9

Kristin Bumiller, In an Abusive State. Chapters 1,2 & 5

SPRING RECESS

March 25

WASTING CITIZENS

Karl Marx, Selections from Early Writings and Capital

Zygmunt Bauman, Wasted Lives

April 1

REGULATING CITIZENS

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punishment, pp. 73-89

William G. Staples, “Small Acts of Cunning: Disciplinary Practices in Contemporary Life,” The Sociological Quarterly, 1994, pp. 545-664.

Beatriz da Costa, et al. “Surveillance Creep! New Manifestations of Data Surveillance at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century,” Radical History Review, Spring 2006, pp. 70-88.

April 8

DISOBEDIENT CITIZENS

Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, “A Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” pages 187-204

April 15

POVERTY AND CITIZENSHIP

Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, Chapter 1, pp. 1-20 and Chapter 4, pp. 166-213.

Devah Pager, “The Mark of a Criminal Record,” American Journal of Criminology, March 2003

April 22

PUNISHING CITIZENS

Bruce Western, Punishment and Inequality

Richard Quinney, “The Life Inside: Abolishing the Prison,” Contemporary Justice Review, September 2006

April 29

POLITICAL PRISONERS

Film: Hunger

Amy Kaplan, “Where is Guantanamo?” American Quarterly, pp. 831-858.

May 6

FINAL PROJECT PRESENTATIONS AND CLOSING

Amherst College: Syllabus

Syllabus 2009