Globalization Space: Infrastructure and Extrastatecraft

This lecture course researches global infrastructures as a medium of transnational polity. Lectures visit the networks of trade, communication, tourism, labor, air, rail, highway, oil, hydrology, finance, and activism. Case studies travel around the world to, for instance, free trade zones in Dubai, IT campuses in South Asia, high-speedd rail in Saudi Arabia, cable/satellite networks in Africa, highways in India, a resort in the DPRK, golf courses in China, oil-financed development in Sudan, and automated ports. Infrastructure histories are often stories of nation-building. These investigations begin in transnational territory where new infrastructure consortia operate in parallel to or in partnership nations. Not only an atlas or survey of physical networks and shared protocols, the course also considers their pervasive and long-term effects on polity and culture. Infrastructures may constitute a de facto parliament of global decision-making or an intensely spatial extra statecraft. Each week, readings, both evidence and discursive commentary, accompany two lectures and a discussion section. A short midterm paper establishes each student's research question for the term. A long final paper completes the requirements of the course. Limited enrollment.