Settler Colonialism: Epistemologies

Undergraduate / Graduate

In this course, we will consider settler colonialism as a contemporary, ongoing process, thinking through the problems of state formation, citizenship, land expropriation, and the law. We will interrogate the epistemological foundations that connect divergent settler colonial states. For example, what is the relationship between modern liberal democracy and ongoing settler-colonial violence? Has the livestreamed genocide in Gaza marked a turning point in that relationship, or has it simply revealed what many people have known for a long time: that settler-colonial states are necessarily undemocratic? We will also take seriously the question of what a decolonial project look like in the very different settler-colonial contexts. Over the quarter, we will examine the transformations of space and subjects effected by the settler colonial project, drawing on historical, anthropological, and theoretical literature.