In the contemporary moment of late globalized capitalism and intersecting economic, political, and ecological crises, authoritarian logics are increasingly intensifying, circulating and expanding on a global scale. The speed through which such logics are put in motion and penetrate various domains of life are indicative of the destabilization of the global order as we have known it. Examples are too many to count, including intensifying wars, extreme police violence, dehumanization campaigns against racialized, transgender, and other minoritized people, attacks on civil rights and academic institutions, deepening inequalities, mass surveillance, and the erosion of international bodies and judicial institutions.
Taking a critical perspective on this moment–and its mainstream diagnoses–this course explores fundamental questions about authoritarian logics as they emerge and travel in a plural and uneven world. It asks participants to grapple conceptually with the relations between the political, economic, and epistemic, to question the imagined geographies that have shaped popular and scholarly assumptions about authoritarianism, and to consider how analytics focused on racial-colonial capitalism can open up new questions and perspectives on authoritarianism, (neo)fascism, democracy, and the current global conjuncture.
This 5 ECTS course is organized as an interdisciplinary lecture series, and students will have the opportunity to attend lectures by local and visiting researchers who will offer situated engagements with questions of authoritarianism from a range of disciplinary positions and geographic locations. The course is a collaboration between researchers in MAB, EDU, and SOC, and it is open to students across faculties and degree levels. It is offered in English.
Programme
All seminars and lectures are given in Tampere University Main Building (Päätalo), lecture room A32
Wednesday 8 April 14-16: Introductory lecture (Wassim Ghantous and Derek Ruez)
Thursday 9 April 14-16: Children’s political agency and its role during and after authoritarianism by Nelli Piattoeva
Friday 10 April 14-16: Neoliberal authoritarianism: Perspectives from Russian Studies by Iuliia Gataulina
Monday 13 April 14-16: Global-colonial critique of peace: Deathly ventures in Gaza by Antti Tarvainen
Tuesday 14 April 14-16: Animalized elimination (and accumulation): the Wandering frontier by Danna Masad
Wednesday 15 April 14-16: Authoritarian Power Relations Go Global: Theories and Practices by Amir Barjasteh
Thursday 16 April 14-16: Closing seminar (Derek Ruez and Wassim Ghantous)
Students enrolled in Tampere University may attend this series as a course HAL.YPAT.349 / YKT.SOO.304 Decentering the global Lectures, 8.4.2026–16.4.2026.
For more details please visit the course Moodle site (to be updated):
https://moodle.tuni.fi/course/view.php?id=49895