Prof Jens Meierhenrich

This course is available on the MSc in International Relations, MSc in International Relations (LSE and Sciences Po) and MSc in International Relations (Research). This course is not available as an outside option to students on other programmes.

This lecture course introduces students to critical international theory, i.e., to modes of thinking that question, challenge, or repudiate conventional approaches to the study of international relations. It is a course about the conduct of inquiry—about alternative ways of seeing. Critical approaches to be discussed range from Marxism to post-structuralism and from feminism to critical race theory. By thinking critically about the study of international relations, the course raises––and answers––thorny questions about the promise—and limits—of international politics.

15 hours of seminars and 10 hours of lectures in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

Students are required to research and write one formative essay (1,000 words) due in Week 7 of Autumn Term. Essays must be fully - and carefully - referenced using one of the major conventions consistently.
The formative essay provides students with an opportunity to write an essay and receive feedback to support their preparation for the summative essay.
 

• Antony Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)
• Alexander D. Barder, Global Race War: International Politics and Racial Hierarchy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021)
• Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000)
• Richard Devetak, Critical International Theory: An Intellectual History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018)
• Adom Getachew, Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019)
• Patrick Jackson, The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations, (London: Routledge, 2010)
• Lisa Lowe, The Intimacies of Four Continents (Durham: Duke University Press, 2015)

Essay (100%, 4000 words) in January.