DWA 232 A Primer for Revolution
Topics may vary semester to semester.
Transnational Social Movements
This course focuses on contemporary social movements with particular attention to transnational information flows. Concentrating on strategies, methods, and approaches to oppositional action, the course will study the global rise in the civilian mobilization against leaders and states perceived as corrupt and or unrepresentative. For example, organizations like Black Lives Matter have influenced and were influenced by Rhodes Must Fall in South Africa. Similar movements in Serbia, Egypt, China, Czechoslovakia, and Iran where unarmed people opposed powerful states encouraged the student protest movements in Hong Kong. Writers like Gene Sharpe, Erica Chenoweth, and others who have written extensively about non-violent means of protests, have influenced many of these contemporary organizations. Academic perspectives on social movements and revolutions will frame the course.