Week 4  Sept 30 – Resistance and Social Non-movements
In settings of repression and coercion, how do people resist in their everyday lives? We look at Bayat’s consideration of what he calls social non-movements, unorganized, spontaneous but powerful ways people change everything. Your Critical Reflection of Antigona’s Court of Women is due today. Come to class prepared to discuss the play in relation to the theme of resistance.

Asef Bayat, Asef. Life as politics: How ordinary people change the Middle East. Stanford University Press, 2013. Introduction, ‘The Art of Presence’ 1-33 and PART 1 – Social Non-Movements 33-152.

Week 5 Oct 7 – Privilege, responsibility and bearing witness
How does one tell a story of suffering and pain that ultimately does not belong to them? How do global geopolitics and Western liberal normative assumptions shape what stories are told? Who has the right and responsibility to bear witness?

1. James Dawes. That the world may know: Bearing Witness to Atrocity. Harvard University Press. 2009. (UBC Online Library – Read Introduction, 1, 2).
2. Teju Cole, The White Industrial Saviour Complex