Module SGIA3791: Politics of Covid-19

Department: Government and International Affairs

SGIA3791: Politics of Covid-19

Prerequisites

• Any Level 2 SGIA module

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To understand the politics and lived experiences of securing ‘life’ itself, with particular emphasis on domestic and international security measures adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic
• To encourage critical reflection on the relationship between ‘security’ as a concept, and transformations in securitising life in everyday lived experience.
• To explore a range of theoretical approaches to understanding the securitisation of life, from biopolitics and necro-politics, to immunity paradigms.
• To develop a grounded understanding of securitising life through a range of ‘case studies’, e.g., vaccination programmes, bio-diplomacy, quarantines, bubbles, community transmission, etc.

Content

• What does it mean to securitise ‘life’ itself? How did ‘life’ become an object of security in 19th and 20th century modernity? How have security practices been transformed by globalisation and digital technologies in the 21st century? This module explores these questions by examining a range of theoretical texts in the field of ‘biopolitics,’ a term coined by the late philosopher Michel Foucault. We will investigate how conceptualisations of life and death, power and subjectivity, race, class and gender become objects of bio-security in a range of scholarly work on ‘biopolitics.’ Possible theorists include Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, Giorgio Agamben, Donna Haraway, Roberto Esposito, Achille Mbembe, Judith Butler, Paolo Virno, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.
• In addition to exploring scholarly work on biopolitics, this module seeks to ground the theoretical content in an international analysis of the impact of Covid-19 on security practices. The Covid-19 pandemic may be the first true ‘world-historical’ event. State-security measures were undertaken to mitigate against viral infection in nearly every corner of the globe, however uneven in application. This module will require students to critically reflect on the spectrum of bio-security measures introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic, both domestically (quarantines/lockdowns; vaccination programmes; digital surveillance; bubbling; regulation of bodies and populations; race and class differentials in Covid infection and deaths; mental health problems) and internationally (bio-diplomacy; vaccine diplomacy and inequality; the role of the WHO; geopolitics of supply chains; legacies of colonialism; etc.).
• Since we have all shared a profound lived experience of the pandemic, one of the central aims of this module will be to critically interrogate the veracity of the biopolitics literature against our shared lived experience. One the one hand, what holes, gaps, erasures, oversights, misinterpretations can be identified in biopolitical literatures? What did these authors miss? On the other hand, what lessons, warnings, insights can be drawn from biopolitical work in the wake of our experience of Covid-19? What, if anything, did these authors get right?

Learning Outcomes

• On successful completion of the module students will be able to:
• Demonstrate advanced level understanding of main theories and debates within biopolitics (thanato-politics, necro-politics, affirmative biopolitics) and the securitisation of life itself.
• Critically evaluate the lived experience and political consequences of the securitisation of life in 19th/20th century modernity and 21st century late-modernity.
• Understand and deploy a range of concepts and theoretical perspectives to analyse public health and diplomacy measures implemented during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.

• Students will also develop some subject specific skills, including:
• Think critically and creatively about how biopolitics and security is organised, persists, and changes.
• The ability to perform textual and conceptual analysis.
• To understand the link between security and life itself.
• To apply knowledge biopolitical theoretical knowledge on empirical case-studies.
• To critically evaluate theoretical knowledge against empirical case-studies.
• To construct an independent argument.

• Students will also develop some important key skills, suitable for underpinning study at this and subsequent levels, such as:
• Demonstrate written communication skills.
• Carry out a research essay based on theoretical content in the course.
• Carry out an in-depth textual analysis of a biopolitical text .
• Demonstrate a capacity to reflect critically on the relations between concepts and a range of real world problems and issues.
• Demonstrate the ability to synthesise diverse information and develop an understanding of contemporary issues and problems.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• The teaching and learning of the module will be 9 one-hour lectures, 10 two-hour seminars. The lectures will give detailed introductions – appropriate to a level three module – to biopolitical theorists, themes, fortnightly texts, and ideas, including advice on critical approaches and reading. There will be a two-hour seminar following each lecture that will allow for guided discussion and greater engagement with a particular author’s text(s). Students are expected to bring one written observation and one written critical question to each seminar, as well as participate in the discussion of every seminar. The observations and critical questions will be incorporated into the discussion, and students must come prepared. The seminars will provide a basis on which to select an area of specialist research for the summative essay. Students will be expected to read 20-40 pages per week in preparation for both lectures and seminars.
• The lectures and seminar series will be subdivided into thematic blocks, two thematic blocks per term. Blcok 1: Power over Life (Foucault, Arendt); Sovereignty and Life (Schmitt, Agamben, Mbembe). Block 2: Immunity and Affirmative Biopolitics (Haraway, Esposito, Hardt and Negri); Biopolitics After Covid-19 (various authors).
• Formative assessment is a 1,000 word proposal for the summative research essay or in-depth book analysis to be submitted in Term 1.
• The first summative assessment is a 1,500 word critical commentary on either thematic block from Term 1.
• The second summative assessment is a 3,000 word essay. Students will choose to write either an empirically-based research essay, or an in-depth analysis of a book within biopolitics scholarship. In both cases, student are expected to situate their empirical essay or book analysis within the biopolitical literatures explored in the module.
• The task of these assessment is to develop students’ research and critical analytical skills. The essay will allow the students to specialise in one selected topic or book and develop a focused, as opposed to a general, argument. The essays will test the development of the identified key skills.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

1,000-word proposal for the summative research essay or in-depth book analysis.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University