This class will run on Wednesdays at 8am Pacific/11am Eastern from October 29th to December 31st.
This course investigates homelessness as a political problem from an interdisciplinary perspective, focusing on the political economy of housing and homelessness in relation to democratic citizenship, biopolitics, governmentality, and social justice. For any comprehensive inquiry into the problem of homelessness, it is imperative to avoid reductive methods whether in the discipline of politics, economics, sociology, or philosophy. Therefore, the course benefits from and encourages multidisciplinary research about housing and homelessness. We will start by looking into the concept of dwelling from ontological, phenomenological, and aesthetical perspectives. Then, we will investigate housing as a question of biopolitical economy, consulting some of the most important scholarships that have been published recently. Next, the course zooms into political concepts, such as democracy, citizenship, and sovereignty. For instance, we will ponder on the link between homelessness and the ability to participate meaningfully in the public sphere; homelessness and othering; and homelessness and the exercise of biopower in contemporary nation-states. While this is a political theory course, a substantial number of the sources focus primarily on homelessness in the United States, so it might also be of interest to students of American politics.
