Module SGIA3801: Advanced Topics in International Political Theory: The International Politics of the Everyday

Department: Government and International Affairs

SGIA3801: Advanced Topics in International Political Theory: The International Politics of the Everyday

Prerequisites

• At least one Level 2 SGIA module

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• Offer students the opportunity to acquire comprehensive knowledge and in-depth understanding of topics, such as responsibility, recognition and identity, power, and political space, that transgress the disciplinary limits of political theory and international relations.
• Apply political theory concepts and methods to non-political theory literature in novel and complex situations.
• Develop students’ critical engagement with theory and the ability to question prevailing assumptions about political and international theory, contributing to students’ use of political thought to make sense of a complex world.
• Encourage students to think differently about politics and international relations with a focus on how people “experience” international politics.

Content

• The module explores different ways in which people “experience” international politics. Potential topics in this regard are food, popular culture, post-truth politics, populism, the environment, gender, and race/ethnicity.
• The module incorporates fiction as primary source in the examination of the international politics of the everyday.
• The module makes use of different theoretical traditions, particularly from the continental tradition, to methodologically frame the international politics of the everyday.

Learning Outcomes

• During the module students will develop an understanding of:
• Select literatures across the Social Sciences and Humanities that concern questions of an international character across a systematic body of knowledge. Indicative topics include: food, popular culture, post-truth politics, populism, the environment, gender, and race/ethnicity;
• The use of fiction to better understand and analyse political problems;
• The relevance of methodology for political debate within and beyond academic contexts to assess novel and complex issues.

• Show evidence of selecting, categorising and critically evaluating texts that address practical and theoretical issues relating to the international politics of the everyday.
• Show the ability to evaluate different theoretical and methodological traditions in the study of the international politics of the everyday, including the limitations of different knowledge forms.
• Demonstrate an awareness of what characterises the “international politics of the everyday.”

• Demonstrate competency through regular submission of coursework.
• Demonstrate an engagement with reflective learning through regular participation in the portfolio assignment.
• Demonstrate the ability to retrieve a variety of resources across disciplinary boundaries and use them confidently and in relation to complex problems/questions.
• Demonstrate effective communication of knowledge and research.
• Demonstrate flexibility in applying knowledge to new areas and problems.
• Demonstrate the ability to reflect on subject material and in the process demonstrate critical creative thinking.
• Demonstrate the ability to synthesise knowledge and perspectives from different disciplines.
• Demonstrate the ability to work independently and reflect critically on their own work.
• Demonstrate the ability to work to a deadline.

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

• The module is comprised of 16 2-hour seminars. Modes of teaching and assessment encourage students to take responsibility for their learning and reflect on the course content while also offering opportunities to cover the course material in a structured and supervised way.
• This module treats formative assessment as a reflective and forward-looking learning process, linking the formative work to summative work in a way that gives students a reflective role in determining what they are assessed on. The submitted work comprises a portfolio of 8 submissions of materials exploring concepts and topics relating to the module. Each submission has a maximum of 500 words. These will be submitted at regular intervals throughout the entire module. Students will receive feedback on all submitted work, but no numerical marks will be released.
• The 8 submissions comprise the submitted formative work.
• Summative assessment will operate as follows.
• A: First, for each portfolio assignment submitted students receive 5 marks if it is judged to be of at least passing quality. Each non-submission incurs a mark of 0 or a five-mark deduction from the overall module grade. These marks are “banked” as contributions to the final module grade. Submission of all 8 assignments will be treated as a competency threshold generating a pass mark of 40. The “banked” marks also set a minimum threshold mark that students cannot go lower than. For example, if a student submits 7 of the 8 assignments, they are guaranteed a minimum mark of 35 for that module. Each submission is given a regularly assessed mark that will also be “banked” and will not be released until the student’s selection as per the second stage.
• B: Second, students will select 5 of their submitted portfolio assignments, the banked marks from these submissions are then averaged, minus the 5 mark deduction applied for each non-submission of work under A. Either the average from B is higher than the mark from A, and therefore B becomes the final module mark; or the mark from A is higher than the mark from B, and therefore A is the final module mark.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Formative assessment will be via regular feedback on portfolio submissions.

■ 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