Syllabus
Major Issues in Contemporary Public Debates in the U.S. II - JMM338
Bloc I. Foreign policy 1. Course introduction and requirements + Overview of Donald Trump's foreign policy team (20.2.2017) 2. Donald Trump’s Grand Strategy and the four archetypes of US foreign policy schools (27.2.2017)
Brands, Hal and Colin Kahl, "Trump’s Grand Strategic Train Wreck", Foreign Policy, January 31, 2017, http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/31/trumps-grand-strategic-train-wreck/
Mead, Walter Russell, "The Jacksonian Revolt: American Populism and the Liberal Order", Foreign Affairs, March/April, 2017. 3. Transatlantic relations at a crossroads (6.3.2017)
Shapiro, Jeremy, "Serious and Existential: The Clinton and Trump Challenges to Transatlantic Relations", Istituto Affari Internazionali Working Paper, October 2016.
Witte, Griff, "Trump tried and failed to build a wall in Ireland. That could mean big trouble for Europe", The Washington Post, February 6, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/trump-tried-and-failed-to-build-a-wall-in-ireland-that-could-mean-big-trouble-for-europe/2017/02/05/4629d02e-e5a0-11e6-a419-eefe8eff0835_story.html?utm_term=.4a8ad5d6d62d&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1 4. Whither relations with Russia? A "cool war"? (13.3.2017)
Andrej Krickovic and Yuval Weber, "Why a new Cold War with Russia is inevitable", Brookings, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2015/09/30-new-cold-war-with-russia-krickovic-weber
Ben Nimmo, "Propaganda in a New Orbit", Center for European Policy Analysis, http://www.cepa.org/sites/default/files/Info%20War%20Two.pdf
David Rothkopf, "The Cool War", Foreign Policy, http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/02/20/the-cool-war/ 5. The US stuck between Iran and Saudi Arabia (20.3.2017)
Carol E. B. Choksy and Jamsheed K. Choksy, "The Saudi Connection: Wahhabism and Global Jihad", World Affairs, May/June, 2015, http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/saudi-connection-wahhabism-and-global-jihad
Stephen Kinzer, "The United States Shouldn’t Choose Saudi Arabia Over Iran", POLITICO, January 4, 2016, http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/saudi-arabia-iran-213504
Bloc II. Domestic policy 6. Why Trump? (27.3.2017)
Kieryn Darkwater, “I Was Trained for the Culture Wars in Home School, Awaiting Someone Like Mike Pence as a Messiah,” Autostraddle, January 26, 2017, https://www.autostraddle.com/i-was-trained-for-the-culture-wars-in-home-school-awaiting-someone-like-mike-pence-as-a-messiah-367057/
“The Intolerance of the left: Trump’s win as seen from Walt Disney’s hometown,” The Guardian, January 27, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/27/why-donald-trump-win-walt-disney
Tom McCarthy, “The Promise: Can Trump really make America great again?” The Guardian, January 18, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/17/donald-trump-america-great-again-northampton-county-pennsylvania
Michael Kruse, “What Do You Do if a Red State Moves to You?” Politico, January/February 2017, http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/blue-red-state-democrats-trump-country-214647
Rick Perlstein, “Peter’s Choice,” Mother Jones, January/February 2017, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/donald-trump-2016-election-oklahoma-working-class 7. "Grab them by ...": Women's rights and rape culture (3.4.)
Nicholas Kristof, “Presidents Trump’s War on Women Begins,” The New York Times: The Opinion Pages, January 26, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/opinion/president-trumps-war-on-women-begins.html?_r=0
Gloria Steinem, “Why women are marching on Washington,” The Boston Globe, January 19, 2017, https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/01/19/why-women-are-marching-washington/mY0XZLDS4pu57uVk6ou4EJ/story.html
"US abortion debate: Both sides speak," BBC News, October 25, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34611878
"Trump's order on abortion: What does it mean?" BBC News, January 24th, 2017, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38729364
Donald Trump, “Grab them by the…,” original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8U0IaMsRf4
Liam Stack, “Light Sentence for Brock Turner in Stanford Rape Case Draws Outrage,” The New York Times, June 6th, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/07/us/outrage-in-stanford-rape-case-over-dueling-statements-of-victim-and-attackers-father.html?_r=0 8. Eager administration or the birth of a dictatorship? (10.4.2017)
Betina Palma, “FACT CHECK: Lawmakers Criminalize Peaceful Protests?” Snopes.com, January 23, 2017, http://www.snopes.com/lawmakers-criminalize-peaceful-protest/
“Bill Across The Country Could Increase Penalties For Protesters,” NPR: All Things Considered, January 31, 2017, http://www.npr.org/2017/01/31/512636448/bills-across-the-country-could-increase-penalties-for-protesters
Jamiles Lartey, “Trump bans agencies from ‘providing updates on social media or to reporters,” The Guardian, January 25, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/24/epa-department-agriculture-social-media-gag-order-trump
Nick Cohen, “Trump’s lies are not the problem. It’s the millions who swallow them who really matter,” The Guardian: Opinion, February 5th, 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/05/donald-trump-lies-belief-totalitarianism
Steven Rosenfelt, “If We Don’t Act Now, Fascism Will Be on Our Doorstep, Says Yale Historian,” an interview with Timothy Snyder, AlterNet, March 13th, 2017, http://www.alternet.org/activism/if-we-dont-act-now-fascism-will-be-our-doorstep-says-yale-historian 9. Eater Break (17.4.2017) 10. Fake News, "Alternative Facts," and the role of Media (24.4.2017)
Celilia Kanc and Adam Goldman, “In Washington Pizzeria Attack, Fake News Brought Real Guns,” The New York Times, December 5, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/business/media/comet-ping-pong-pizza-shooting-fake-news-consequences.html
John Swaine, “Donald Trump’s team defends ‘alternative facts’ after widespread protests,” The Guardian, January 23, 2017, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/22/donald-trump-kellyanne-conway-inauguration-alternative-facts?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_t
Annotation
The aim of the course is to monitor and analyse events in US domestic and foreign policy in real-time. Looking at important issues that shape the public debate in the US, the course will provide insight into issues that are crucial for understanding contemporary US politics.
Monitoring the dynamism of contemporary politics requires a thorough reading of real-time sources of information, such as online journals, newspapers and/or speeches of policymakers. To use the expression of Timothy Garton Ash, the course will provide students with a picture of the "history of the present" of the United States while applying analytical tools such as discourse analyses and case studies.