Making and Unmaking the World: Histories of Development and Dispossession

Catalog description

Visions of development have transformed the modern world, reshaping landscapes, uprooting communities, and redefining what it means to live a good life. This course examines how projects of improvement, often framed as humanitarian or progressive, have served as tools of domination. From colonial interventions to postwar infrastructure and population transfers, we will explore how development has operated as both promise and threat. Alongside grand ambitions, we will trace the lived experiences of dispossession, displacement, and environmental destruction. Who defines progress? Who benefits? And who pays the price? The class asks you to consider these questions from a global historical perspective, including but not limited to the Middle East. Through international case studies, critical readings, and reflective assignments, you will approach development not as a neutral goal but as a contested process shaped by power, ideology, and resistance. The course moves between past and present to consider how development continues to shape lives, landscapes, and futures.