London School of Economics

This course provides an analysis of the politics of contemporary development processes in the South and the global interests that influence them. The course considers development as both practical pursuit and as a series of discourses and representations. Three key themes are covered: key concepts and historical overview (introducing critical approaches to development, and providing an overview of development during the Cold War); securing development in the 21st century (addressing discourses and representations in relation to the security-development nexus, focusing on immigration, disease, drugs, and violence); and doing development in the 21st century (examining development in practice, looking especially at approaches to tackling informality and chronic unemployment, such as microfinance, and universal basic income).

This course takes a historical approach to examining a series of pivotal transitions in the shaping of the global order across the last several centuries. Focusing on some of the world's most influential thinkers and leaders, from Smith to Keynes, from Napoleon to Churchill and beyond, the course explores the new ideas that ascended, the leaders that defined these orders, and the interaction between the two.

This course considers the economic potential of Big Data and AI. It begins by describing the rise of Big Data and the burgeoning field of AI, and proceeds to consider the implications of these new technologies for managers and for society as a whole. With this foundation, students examine managerial decision-making using data analytics. The course provides students with an understanding of the foundational elements of data analysis and the use of statistical thinking in the context of managerial decision-making in today’s age of big data. It is important to note that the course is primarily conceptual and analytical, rather than technical, and does not cover programming techniques. The tools developed in the course are the interpretation and evaluation of data analytics, and managerial decision-making based on such analytics.

 

This course analyzes the intimate relationship between race and geography in the modern world. Through a range of historical and contemporary cases, it examines how interconnected forms of racial and spatial difference are produced, reproduced, and transformed. Focusing on the material and cultural formation of racialized geographies, students learn to recognize how racially inflected discourses and practices shape the production of space and how geographical location matters to racial classification, identification, and discrimination. The course is organized around a series of archetypal spaces: the body, the nation, the colony, the city, the home, the prison, the plantation, the border, the school, or the street. In each case, students examine the confluence of race and space within broader themes, such as colonialism, capitalism, urbanization, globalization, environmentalism, migration, and incarceration. Since race often intersects with other forms of difference, students also learn to interrogate the influence of gender, class, religion, and sexuality on the production of space. Texts from human geography, critical race theory, colonial and postcolonial studies, history, sociology, and anthropology in addition to other media, such as film, literature, journalism, and photography, provide students with conceptual resources and methodological tools. Ultimately, the objective is to advance a comparative, critical analysis of the relationship between geography and race, past and present, and to explore the conditions of future possibility for the linked political projects of anti-racism and spatial justice.

This multidisciplinary course examines childhood in historical and social context, exploring the implications for human development, child-care, child competencies, and education. Students explore the implications of seeing childhood as a cultural construct; investigate how different notions of childhood make a difference to actual children's development; and examine the modern understanding of “child rights” and its influence – both positive and negative – on children's lives.

This course provides an advanced introduction to contemporary political theory. Both parts of the course engage normative- and critical-theoretical texts by considering present-day political and social problems. Part One investigates political-theoretical concepts and arguments in view of increasingly precarious social and economic conditions for much of the world’s population. What norms of justice, equality, and liberty might justify efforts to redistribute material resources? How have recent changes in capitalism affected human desires with regard to work, work’s products, and work-based relationships, and what new forms of freedom or submission might such altered desires promote? Part Two confronts pressing questions that stem from climate change, global migration, and racial and colonial violence. What shifts in modern notions of nature-human relations might climate change spur and under what political conditions would people respond to these ethical imperatives? What obligations does a political society have to migrants and what new conceptions of political agency might migrants’ work and political ventures suggest? What are the sources of colonial and racial violence, and what ethical and political commitments should anti-racist and decolonizing responses entail? Teaching 15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the MT. 15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the LT. 1 hour and 30 minutes of lectures in the ST. There will be reading weeks in MT Week 6 and LT Week 6. Formative coursework Students are expected to submit two formative essays in MT and a mock exam paper in LT. The course requires students to organize their workloads, to complete readings in advance of lectures, and to prepare to participate actively in seminars. The course thus emphasizes the development of verbal and written communication abilities. Students also should expect to tackle basic questions about what it means to write political theory by exploring tensions and affinities between normative/ethical and critical-theoretical approaches. Indicative reading John Rawls, “A Theory of Justice”; Robert Nozick, “Distributive Justice”; Kathi Weeks, “The Problem with Work”; Jacques Rancière, “Disagreement”; David Schlosberg, “Environmental Justice and the New Pluralism”; Joseph Carens, “The Ethics of Immigration”; Michel Foucault, “Society Must Be Defended”; Mohandas K. Gandhi, “Hind Swaraj”; James Baldwin, “The Fire Next Time” Assessment Exam (60%, duration: 2 hours) in the summer exam period. Essay (40%, 2000 words) in the LT. GENERAL COURSE STUDENTS ONLY: The Class Summary Grade for General Course students will be calculated as follows:15% class participation, 50% assessed coursework, 30% formative coursework (15% per assignment), and 5% attendance.