OVERVIEW: This course introduces students to theories and methods used by scholars of international security, militarism, and counterinsurgency. Through analyses of key texts in American Studies and Human Rights, we will examine contested definitions of security. We will explore how space has been organized around presumptions of racialized threats, gendered notions of safety, and colonial conceptions of erasure. We will study how security strategies have been produced through these spatial conceptions. Through in-class exercises, workshops, and discussion, students will learn to discern which theories and methods are best suited to their own research needs. Over the course of the semester, students will prepare a research abstract, an archival object analysis, annotated bibliography, research prospectus, and short draft of their capstone project. In these ways, students prepare for their final capstone project. For those writing theses, the proposal will serve as a roadmap for their work in Spring 2025.