MSc Political Thought

This compulsory core module for the MSc programme on Political Thought focuses on approaches to the study of political theory in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The module is relevant for students in regionally defined MSc programmes in the Politics department, and to those enrolled in area studies degrees based in other departments. It is distinct from other modules in the area studies degrees since our study is not confined to a single geographical region; rather, the focus is on the study of concepts and political thought. The module seeks to introduce the main approaches and themes in the emerging sub-field of comparative political theory and to elaborate conceptual approaches to the comparison of political thinking across regions and traditions that the module develops.

This module seeks to provide PG students in Comparative Political Thought and other interested students at the department a substantial background in political theory and approaches to the analysis of political thought. It works slowly and closely on some key texts in the history of political thought, and situates them in their global, racial, economic, and gendered contexts by considering questions of empire, class, slavery, location, and more. At the same time, and as part of an effort to re-think the curriculum, the module undoes distinctions between “primary” and “secondary” readings on several levels.

This dissertation enables the students to work on a research topic in relation to their chosen major. They will learn how to approach the topic they have chosen from an academic angle, under the supervision of a member of staff. The dissertation is normally written over the summer period and submitted in September.

This offers an investigation into the theories and key texts that inform several other courses currently being offered, such as Indigenous Land Rights; Colonialism, Empire and International Law; Law and Society in South Asia; and others. This course does not overlap but provides part of the groundwork that will complement these courses.

In this module, you will gain: an understanding of African political thought and debate throughout the period leading to decolonisation, the years of independence, and reflective thought some 50 years after independence. Application of learning to the understanding of contemporary African politics. Appreciation of different strands of political thought in different parts of Africa, their relationship to distinct histories and cultures, and their efforts towards a unified body of thought in the face of analyses and diagnoses of contemporary globalisation. And the ability to problematise African political thought by means of both critique and contextualisation.

This half-unit module seeks to critically engage with the politic and theory of state violence. It will begin with a close reading of some primary philosophies of violence to try and understand both the phenomena itself and its schemes of justification.

This module introduces Masters students in the Department of Politics to debates around key concepts in political theory. Through a focus on influential texts and thinkers in contemporary political theory, it aims to provide a grounding in a range of concepts that are commonly used in political analysis and critique across different regions and periods. Students will engage with debates over the different meanings of liberty, the requirements of rights and justice, the forms of democracy and civil society, the nature of power and sovereignty, the critiques of post-colonialism, gender and identity theorists.

This module provides a philosophical and empirical introduction to contemporary debates regarding the compatibility of Islam and democratic political thought and practice. It also encourages a critical re-examination of these debates through a discussion of Muslim scholarship (and practice) pertaining to the specification and interpretation of religious laws, the role of religious and political opposition, and the status of the individual in political and social life. These aspects are explored conceptually and through case studies from Asia and the Middle East.

The so-called ‘resurgence’ of religion in the public sphere in recent decades is now a significant area of interdisciplinary scholarship eliciting a complex array of responses, ranging from vehement opposition to the very idea that religious concepts and commitments have a right to expression in public, political debates to a reassessment of the provenance and implications of divisions between the secular and the religious and their relationship to the nation state. The current geopolitical landscape wherein ‘religion’ has become a force to be reckoned with has demanded a reassessment of once predominant understandings of processes of secularisation, as well as the meanings of, and tensions inherent within, secular assumptions and secularist positions. The notion that there is no singular secularism, but rather a plurality of secularisms, and of religion as an invention of European modernity and colonialist exigencies are two of many emerging efforts to reconceptualise the meanings of religion and the secular and the entangled relationship between them. This course will offer a comprehensive overview of the various debates around the nature of the secularism and the role of religion in the public sphere.

This is a thematic course on one aspect of the Buddhist tradition in East Asia, mainly China and Japan. The subject of the course may be different every year. The first topic to be analysed will be the esoteric tradition (mi-jao/mikkyo). In the following years other major systems of Buddhist thought, such as the Tiantai/Tendai and the Pure Land traditions, will be explored. The course will address the history of the selected tradition, its specific doctrinal tenets, its textual corpus and its major deities, and the forms of worship that characterize it. Attention will be devoted to the influence that the selected form of Buddhism exerted in the formation of the culture of China and Japan (with more emphasis given to Japan).

This module outlines the development of African Philosophy in the 20th century, a discourse that hinges on the following questions: does philosophy exist in Africa? What are the specific qualities that distinguish it from Western philosophy? We will survey the trends in African philosophical thought classified under the rubrics of ethnophilosophy", "nationalist-ideological philosophy", "sage philosophy", and "professional philosophy", and discuss specific concepts with philosophical reference or resonance, such as race, time, but also development or art. Several classes will be devoted to influential contemporary philosophers, in particular Paulin Hountondji, Kwame Anthony Appiah, V.-Y. Mudimbe, Henry Odera Oruka, and Kwasi Wiredu."

This module outlines the development of African Philosophy in the 20th century, a discourse that hinges on the following questions: does philosophy exist in Africa? What are the specific qualities that distinguish it from Western philosophy? We will survey the trends in African philosophical thought classified under the rubrics of ethnophilosophy", "nationalist-ideological philosophy", "sage philosophy", and "professional philosophy", and discuss specific concepts with philosophical reference or resonance, such as race, time, but also development or art. Several classes will be devoted to influential contemporary philosophers, in particular Paulin Hountondji, Kwame Anthony Appiah, V.-Y. Mudimbe, Henry Odera Oruka, and Kwasi Wiredu."

This course is intended to provide both an introduction to queer theory, as well as to engage with the question of its relevance in contemporary Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. This course will use struggles for sexual self-determination as a prism through which to consider broader questions about the constitution of modernity, the proliferation of identities, rights and claims for justice, the consolidation and deconstruction of postcolonial national identities, the aspirations and anxieties of postcolonial elites, etc. These questions will be studied contextually, with topics in many weeks focusing on a single area case study, or a comparison of two or more country-contexts.

This is a critical gender studies course that offers post graduate students an understanding of the diverse ways in which African feminisms have evolved across the African continent. The course proceeds from both a gender and queer theory perspective to unpacking how African feminist interventions have ruptured state/society relations organised around gendered, racialised and classed hierarchies. This course is not designed to offer a comprehensive understanding of the African continent neither does it attempt to offer full coverage of the African continent. What it does is provide students with the theoretical tools to analyse activisms, research and policy making institutions set up to challenge power and resisting injustice. The pedagogical approach to the course is centred on providing practical examples to illustrate the evolution, reversals and contestations that have shaped feminist politics and activisms in Africa.

The objective of this module is to enable students to apply knowledge of feminist legal theory and the study of gender and sexuality to a series of legal problems. The module will provide an in-depth study of one, two or three issues relevant to gender and sexuality law reform primarily in the Global South.

In this module we examine theories about the relationship between law, rights and social change, using country and thematic case studies to illuminate and deepen our understanding of both the potential and the limits of what may be achieved through the language and architecture of law and rights. With a special focus on some of the countries in the SOAS mandate, we explore the possibilities for human agency for change through law and rights, identifying national and international constraints, in relation to issues and situations that pose some of the greatest challenges to the concept of rights as a valuable tool for social change.

This module offers Masters students focusing on Middle East politics an opportunity to reflect critically upon ideas of counterhegemony and resistance as ways of understanding politics and political struggle in the Middle East. Much of the literature on politics in the Middle East foregrounds the dominant structures of power, dominant ideologies and the varied forms of hegemony. Less studied are the ways in which variously situated groups and individuals throughout the region have tried to negotiate with, subvert and resist these forms of hegemony and the mixed outcomes of many of these struggles. The module will take certain general themes and illustrate them through specific case studies from different countries in the Middle East.

This module offers historical, theoretical and empirical perspectives on the nature and causes of conflict and its impact of on social and economic development in Africa, Asia and the Middle East over the past century, as well as memory and justice responses to violence. It emphasises the crucial linkages of conflict, memory and justice, in particular the prevalence of unaddressed or manipulated memories of violence, historical grievance and impunity as causes of further conflict.

The course focuses on the contestations in the history, institutions and politics of the global human rights regime, in general terms and in relation to specific rights issues, and considers its future prospects. We begin with a look at the contested history of human rights and ask why arguments about their origins are so persistent and the implications of dominant accounts of origins for contemporary politics of human rights. We then look at the sociology of human rights, using this approach to ask where the politics of human rights are located, and how and with what consequences the human rights ‘movement’ reproduces its moral authority. We then look at both international human rights norms and the institutions that embody them, including the relationship between rights, humanitarianism and international justice. Then, in the long middle section of the course, we examine a series of core rights issues in more depth, ranging from economic and social rights – including what relation, if any, human rights have to neoliberalism; women’s rights, children’s rights, and gender-based violence; LGBT* rights; states' routine suspension of rights in the name of security ('emergencies') - the new ‘normal’ of the ‘Global War on Terror' that has intensified amid the global pandemic; and the struggle for rights in exile (including, but not limited to, asylum) and, relatedly, the inexorable rise of the carceral state.

The last few years have seen people rise up in many parts of the world and, in so doing, they follow long traditions of revolt and resistance, and justify the impulse to rebel with both political reform programmes and deep ethical and philosophical, not to mention religious reasoning. This module considers those reasoning and looks at work on the just rebellion from different parts of the world, and not just from Western sources. The module has the general objective of providing a comparative and multicultural approach to the political philosophies, theories, norms and practices of rebellion, both in various historical national contexts and in a contemporary global context.

This course introduces MSc Middle East Politics students to the politics of solidarity and transnationalism, with a particular focus on the Arab world during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

This module is designed to provide a general introduction to problems, approaches and debates in social science methodologies (broadly understood). The aim is to make MSc students familiar with prominent methodological angles and language(s), to provide both a solid grounding in the key issues and a critical understanding of them.

This module constitutes the core course for the MA Buddhist Studies. It is designed to provide students with a broad understanding of the major processes and dynamics at work in the growth and development of Buddhism as a pan-Asian religion and with the key methodological tools required to approach this major cultural force in its fascinating diversity. This course is co-taught by the four key scholars of Buddhism in the Department of the Study of Religions at SOAS, whose regional and disciplinary expertise fully complement each other, thereby offering the course its unique breadth. As a foundation in Buddhist Studies, the course will offer the necessary background to the other courses of the MA, which possess a more regional, thematic or disciplinary focus.