Liberalism and War

Catalog description

The course begins from the assumption that liberalism is a paradigmatic condition that defines the boundaries between life and death through its inextricable relationship to war. The course proceeds to explore this condition structurally, focusing on the economic, legal, political, and social forms generated from liberalism’s war power. This includes forms expressed in the flows of capital, the legal binds of secularism, securitization and counterinsurgency, the formation of the police power, and the management of the impending ecological catastrophe. Course topics examine foundational concepts that collocate war and liberalism: including sovereignty, value, freedom, human life, rights, secularization, force, and the state form.