Lehrende: Prof. Dr. Rose Marie Beck
Veranstaltungsart: Seminar
Orga-Einheit: 03-Afrikastudien
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Semesterwochenstunden: 2
Unterrichtssprache: Englisch
Offizielle Kursbeschreibung: This course starts out from Joel Glasman’s book "Humanitarianism and the Quantification of Human Needs. Minimal Humanity" (2020). Using examples from Africa, he adds a historical perspective to the very timely question of what “human needs” are: how they are established historically and scientifically (conceptually, classification, materiality, standardization), how then these needs are administered and governed in current humanitarian contexts, and what that does to our conception of what a human being is. In order to understand the broader context of his contribution we will read about humanitarianism, ‘evidence based’ intervention, human & civil rights, refugee camps, poverty, the politics of large numbers and knowledge, how concepts are produced by sorting phenomena and thus producing them, etc. We take the current Covid 19 pandemic with all its consequences as point of reference, discussing how what we read resonates with our current world around us. The semester will certainly start online with some hope for normalization towards the last third of the course. Texts are uploaded on moodle in the course “Minimal Humanity”, password is needology. The course is structured according to the chapters of the book (introduction, 6 chapters, conclusion). Additional literature accompanies each chapter. Students can also make suggestions for further reading. Since this topic needs discussion, I provisionally plan do hold a pretty traditional reading course, i.e. students prepare class by reading the texts.
