Recently, the Netherlands recognized The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster as an official religion. You may laugh, but this also poses the serious question of what constitutes a religion and how our conception of religion has changed over time. Since the Renaissance, science and rationality replace the religiosity of the Middle Ages, and we believe that we have come to the age of light and reason (as opposed to the Medieval); however, in our secular age or in our modern era, what is the relationship between religion and science, religiosity and Secularism? We will also talk about the rise of fundamentalism and nationalism in different religions, the modernization and secularization of religion and religion in a colonial and post-colonial context. Case studies may include: Hindu fundamentalism, Westboro Baptist Church and the Christian right and etc.

People usually associate colonialism with European colonialism and imperialism in Asia, Africa and some parts of America. Meanwhile, postcolonialism is seen as this abstract concept within the ivory tower. However, are those preconceptions really true? Why do we care about colonialism, postcolonialism and anticolonial Strategies? How can they inform us about the world we currently live in?

In 1978, Michel Foucault coined the term “bio-power” in his lecture at Collège de France. He describes biopower as “the set of mechanisms through which the basic biological feature of the human species became the object of a political strategy, of a general strategy of power.” Since then, a lot of different thinkers, writers and philosophers were (and still are) inspired by Foucault. In this course, I will lead you to investigate the history of politics and explore the intertwining relationships among sovereignty, biopolitical state, humanitarianism and coloniality. We will also discuss how both life and death function in different political machines. For those of you who are interested in political science, literature, philosophy, history and humanities/ social science in general, this will be a great class for you. Contact me if you have any question regarding this class!