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-speed 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. These investigations begin in transnational territory where new infrastructure consortia operate in parallel to or in partnership with 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, with 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 longer final paper completes the requirements of the course. Limited enrollment.


All Semesters

4216
Fall 2017
Globalization Space: International Infrastructure and Extrastatecraft
Keller Easterling