Geog 273: (Advanced Topics in Political Economy and Ecology)

Geographies of American Empire

Wed 3:30-6:30 Lafayette L311

Fall 2007

 

Dr. Sasha Davis

Office Rm. 208 Old Mill

Office Hours: Tues 10-11am, Wed 2-3 pm and Fri 9-10am

or by appointment

Phone 656-2086 Email: Sasha.Davis@uvm.edu

 


Course Description:

 

United States military forces have been deployed in foreign countries from the Spanish-American War to the present.  What are the effects of this projection of American military power to other parts of the world? While the practices of imperial power are often studied at the global scale through the lens of geopolitics, this class seeks to examine the ways that military activities such as combat operations, constructing bases, training, and weapons testing affect lives in the places where they occur.  This class focuses on the way local politics, societies, environments and human well-being are shaped by the international projection American military power.  The class will focus on case studies from places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Latin America, Korea, Marshall Islands, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, Japan, and the Philippines.

 

 

Course Requirements:

 

 

Readings and Participation:

 

This is a seminar class.  This means that I expect everyone to read the material before the class meeting and to participate in class discussions.

 

The four texts you need for the class are Bush in Babylon: The Recolonization of Iraq by Tariq Ali (2003 Verso Press), Nemesis: the Last Days of the American Republic by Chalmers Johnson (2006 Metropolitan Books), Globalization and Militarism: Feminists Make the Link by Cynthia Enloe (2007 Rowman and Littlefield) and the Iraq Study Group Report (2006). 

 

The rest of the readings for the course must be read through the UVM library’s electronic reserve system.  You get them on-line by going to the UVM library website – http://library.uvm.edu/   On that page click on ‘course reserves’ which is on the green bar on the top of the page.  On the reserve page, under ‘course’ scroll down to find Geog 273.  Then hit ‘search’.  The class readings will then come up.  Select the reading you are looking for and click on it.  On this page look at the link that says ‘internet’ and click on that webpage.  The computer will ask you for your username and password.  Enter your username and password for your ZOO account.  The article will then come up as a PDF file.  You can read the article on your computer or print it out.  You must have Adobe Acrobat to read the file.  If you do not have that program you can download it for free.  There is a link to download Adobe Acrobat on the course reserve webpage (where you searched for the course name).  Let me know if you expect to have any problems getting these readings and we’ll try to arrange something.  These are all very important readings.  They are on reserve instead of put together in a photocopied reader for one reason…. It’s cheaper. 

 

Class case studies

 

Each student will take a turn (in pairs or small group) presenting the class with a case study of a place impacted by militarization or war. 

 

Discussion points-

 

For each class you should write up approximately 5 questions or ‘talking points’ that occur to you during the readings.  This doesn’t have to be anything elaborate, but it is meant to be a way to keep discussion going in the class (as well as to help answer questions in class you may have had while doing the readings).  To receive credit for these they need to be emailed to me by 6am the day of class.  I will print these out and give them back to you in class so that you can refer to them for discussion.

 

 

Final Paper and Oral Presentation-

 

You will be writing a paper for this class and doing a 6 minute presentation on it. The oral presentations will take place on the last day of class, Dec 5, and the paper is due on Friday, Dec 7th by 5pm.  The research topic is up to you, but it should be related to the class theme of “the geographies of American Empire.”  A suggestion is to do a case study of a place we haven’t discussed in detail in the course (such as Kosovo, Somalia, Nicaragua, Germany, Vietnam, etc).  An alternative tack would be to do a paper on a particular type of impact (such as health, issues regarding gender or sexuality, political representation, environmental issues, economic impacts, etc). You must hand in to me a topic idea in class on Oct 17th. Also on Nov. 7th you must hand in an annotated bibliography of at least 10 scholarly sources that pertain to your project.  If you would like to turn in a first draft of your paper and get feedback you must turn it in by Nov 28th.  (This is optional).

 

Papers should be at least 12 pages for undergrads and 20 pages for grad students. Grads are encouraged to do their projects on an organization that is directly relevant to their thesis work.

 

What an ‘A’ paper looks like:

 

The paper should be clearly written, well organized, and turned in on time. While websites of various organizations and news outlets can provide valuable information about your topic, an ‘A’ paper is based on research that not only cites numerous scholarly sources (books and published articles) but also analyzes and critiques them.  The paper should mesh the information from your research with concepts and readings covered in class during the semester, but I expect that you will consult a variety of scholarly sources that are pertinent to your analysis that go beyond what was assigned in class. 

 

Papers that lack one or more of these elements will be graded lower than an A.

 

This is how the points will break down:

 

Attendance and discussion contributions:           200 points

“Talking Points” turn-ins:                                   300 points

Class case study:                                                50 points

Turn in of annotated bibliography                        50 points

Oral Presentation                                              100 points

Final paper:                                                      300 points

Total points:                                                    1000 points

 

Grades will be distributed according to the following scale:

 

A+ 100-97; A 97-93; A- 93-90; B+ 90-87;  B 83-87; B- 83-80;  C+ 80-77; C 77-73; C- 73-70;  D+ 70-67; D 67-63; D- 60-63;  F= below 60.

 

Academic dishonesty: Academic dishonesty includes plagiarism (submitting someone else’s work as your own), cheating, and fabrication of information or citations.  It will result in a grade of “F” for this course.  If you have any questions or uncertainty regarding this policy discuss them with me. 

 

Access: I encourage persons with disabilities to participate in this class.  If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation in this course or have questions about physical access, please tell me as soon as possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Class Schedule:

(Note:  This is an approximate schedule.  If there are any changes to it I will announce it in class.)

 

 

Aug 29:  An American Empire?  Introduction and syllabus

 

Introductions, syllabus, short in-class readings on American empire by Christopher Preble and Joseph Nye.  Case study of Diego Garcia.

 

Sept 5:  The contemporary empire

 

            Case study of Guam

 

Prologue and Chapters 1, 2 from Nemesis (2006) by Chalmers Johnson.

 

            Chapter 1 from Enloe Globalization and militarism (2007).

 

“What is within our power?” By Thomas Donnelly from The Obligation of Empire 2004

           

“A warning to Africa: the new imperial grand strategy” (2007) by John Foster.

 

Sept 12:  The empire in space: Geopolitics.

           

Case study of Kwajalein.

 

Chapters 2 and 3 from Enloe Globalization and militarism.

 

Chapters 4 and 6 of Nemesis.

 

“Dark Side of U.S. Quest for Security: Squalor on an Atoll” by Howard French (June 11, 2001, New York Times)

 

Sept 19: The empire in place: a feminist geopolitics

           

Student case study

 

Chapter 5 of Nemesis. 

 

Chapter 2 of Homefront (2002) by Katherine Lutz.

 

Chapter 4 from Banana’s Beaches and Bases (1990) by Cynthia Enloe

 

Record of sexual attacks in Okinawa.

 

 

Sept 26: Roots of American Empire

 

Student case study

 

Chapters Intro and 1 of From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai‘i (1999) by Haunani-Kay Trask

 

Chapter 1 of TheDisenchanted Island (1996) by Ronald Fernandez.

 

Read Chapter 1 of The American Colonial State in the Philippines (2003) edited by Julian Go and Anne Foster.

 

Chapter 1 from Emperors in the Jungle: the hidden history of the US in Panama (2003) by John Lindsay-Poland

 

 

Oct 3:  The Empire Grows

           

Student case study

 

Chapter 2 (How America’s Power Grew) from David Harvey’s The New Imperialism.

 

 

Oct 10: Human rights, dislocation and making space for violence

           

            Vieques visit

           

Chapter 1 of Military power and popular protest (2002) by Kathleen McCaffrey.

           

 

Oct 17: Imperial Environments.

           

Turn in Project Idea

 

Case study Bikini

 

“Conservation encounters in the ‘contact zones’ of empire” (2006) by Juanita Sundberg.

 

“Manifest Ecological Destinies: Local Rights and Global Environmental Agendas.” (1995) By Neumann and Schroeder.

 

“Scales of Eden: Conservation and Pristine Devastation on Bikini Atoll” (2007) by Sasha Davis

 

Oct 24:  Nation-building and the neo-conservative future

           

Student case study

 

Read Chapters 1 (George W. Bush), 3 (Deepak Lal), 5 (David North), and 18 (Wendell Berry) from The Imperial Tense (2003) edited by Andrew Bacevich

 

            Read “Neo-con 101” by CATO institute

 

Rebuilding America’s Defenses (2000) by the Project for a New American Century

 

 

Oct 31: War on terror

 

Student case study

 

“Revolutionary Islam” (2006) by Michael Watts

 

“The Pentagon’s New Imperial Cartography” (2006) by Simon Dalby

 

Read executive summary of America’s Role in Nation Building (2003) by James Dobbins, et al. (RAND corp)

           

Read Chapter 1 “Some thoughts on the power of focused, principled hatred” from Imperial Hubris (2004) by anonymous (Michael Scheuer)

 

 

Nov 7: Iraq

           

Hand in annotated bibliography of at least 10 scholarly sources that pertain to your research topic.

 

Student case study

 

“Demodernizing by design” (2006) by Stephen Graham

           

Read Bush in Babylon (2003) by Tariq Ali

           

Read “With Korea as a model, Bush team ponders long support role in Iraq” by D. Sanger (2007)

 

 

 

 

 

Nov 14: More Iraq (or if another war starts by this date we can talk about that).

           

            Student case study

           

Iraq study group report (2006)

           

Read “Sustaining an Unpopular Regime:  In the Philippines, US aid has helped bolster a government whose military is tied to extrajudicial killings” by M. Guevara (2007)

 

No Class Nov 19-23 Thanksgiving break

 

 

Nov 28: an empire of liberty or liberty from empire?

 

If you want to submit a draft of your paper for feedback turn it in today

 

Student case study

 

Chapters 7 and 8 from Globalization and Militarism by Enloe.

 

Proclamation by “No Bases” activist network (2007)

 

 

Dec 5: Student presentations

 

 

Friday Dec 7: No class, but papers are due by 5pm on this day