What are empires? In what ways do they differ from national-states, federations, composite monarchies, hegemonic systems, and other ways of organizing political communities?
How do empires emerge, survive, and decline? What kinds of resistance do they face, and what makes anti-imperial movements more or less likely to succeed?
This class examines the dynamics of empires — and imperialism — by interweaving traditional work with “texts” drawn from the science-fiction genre, with a focus on the Star Wars franchise in general, and on Andor in particular.
This is a new class, and the syllabus remains under construction. But key texts will likely include The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire, Patterns of Empire: The British and American Empires, 1688 to the Present, and Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome.
The course is taught in seminar format, with student grades determined largely by a combination of class participation and a research project.