Topic Course: Empire, Power, Sovereignty, and Global Justice
DEVS 862
Graduate Courses
Fall 2026
3 Units
In-person
3
one-way Exclusions
Course Description
Building on to the seminal works of Tuck and Yang (2012) and Wolfe (2006), this course focuses on empire as a persistent structure of domination that shapes global development, power relations, sovereignty, and justice. Drawing on structural critiques informed by settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and imperial violence, the course examines how empire maintains itself and operates through institutions, borders, aid regimes, debt relations, and systemic violence. The course puts a careful emphasis on the ideological and material foundations and continuities of the empire -from colonial conquest to contemporary development and security regimes- while also centering liberatory frameworks for global justice and collective struggle.
Learning Outcomes
- Critically analyze the ongoing role of empire in shaping global structures of power and development.
- Identify and evaluate key theoretical frameworks, including postcolonial, decolonial, Indigenous, and critical development perspectives.
- Apply concepts such as sovereignty, extraction, and humanitarianism to contemporary global issues.
- Engage with and critique scholarly and activist work that challenges imperial formations.
- Develop original arguments about global justice grounded in historical and material understandings of empire.