Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POC3106: Biopolitics of Security

This module descriptor refers to the 2017/8 academic year.

Please note that this module is only delivered on the Penryn Campus.

Module Aims

The module aims to enable you to develop a critical understanding of contemporary security events, formulate new research insights and understand issues of International Relations, Security and Migration studies through a biopolitical lens. The module will help you to understand the techniques and rationales used by the nation-states to decide who shall live and who shall die, who shall be counted and who should be disappeared out of sight, and how to make such management acceptable to public morality and reason. The module will also prepare you for academic and other careers in the field of critical theory and security studies. 

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills1. Understand and explain, in-depth, contemporary and emerging challenges to security.
2. Demonstrate a critical and reflexive approach in assessing academic and policy debates on security
Discipline-Specific Skills3. Show awareness of key perspectives and debates in Biopolitics and their interface with critical theory.
4. Apply Foucauldian methodology, abstract theoretical perspectives to actual events of security.
Personal and Key Skills5. Develop critical arguments and offering alternative means of thinking.
6. Construct a reasoned and logical argument supported by evidence.
7. Work independently within a limited timeframe to complete a specified task