THE CONCEPT

The Annual Masterclass in Critical Security Studies/International Relations is an extended session intended to help satisfy the thirst among PAIS graduate and postgraduate students as well as early career researcher for advanced theoretical/ methodological training in critical approaches to international relations. The number of participants is capped at 25 to enable an in-depth discussion of the Masterclass topic over a buffet lunch. Guest speakers are also invited to present their research to a wider audience as part of the SISAW Event Series.

Academic Year 2016/17 - BRENT STEELE: Ontological Security and the Everyday.

This year’s eminent speaker is Professor Brent J. Steele, who holds the Francis D. Wormuth Presidential Chair in Political Science at the University of Utah. Professor Steele is a leading scholar on Ontological Security, and his research is widely cited across the fields of international relations and security studies. His publications include Ontological Security in International Relations (Routledge, 2008 [Paperback edition, 2014]), ‘Organizational Processes and ontological (in)security: Torture, the CIA and the United States’, Cooperation and Conflict (2017, forthcoming), and, edited with Oliver Kessler, ‘The Next Generation of Constructivist research’, special issue of European Review of International Studies (forthcoming 2017).

When: Thursday, 27 April 2017 (10am-12noon)
Where: E2.02 Social Sciences [TBC]

PAST EVENTS

Academic Year 2015/16: EDWARD NEWMAN: How to Make an Intervention - The Case of Human Security

Edward Newman is Professor of International Security at the University of Leeds, and is a leading scholar in the field of security studies in general, and human security in particular. Prof Newman's research is widely cited across the fields of international relations and security studies, and his recent publications include Understanding Civil Wars: Continuity and Change in Intra-State Conflict (Routledge 2014) and ‘Human Security: Reconciling Critical Aspirations with Political ‘Realities’’, British Journal of Criminology (2016). Prof Newman was formerly the editor of the journal Civil Wars (2011-2016), where he remains involved as an associate editor. He is also a founding executive editor of International Relations of the Asia Pacific, and a member of the editorial board of Contemporary Politics.

Academic Year 2014/15 - CLAUDIA ARADAU: Security Devices

Claudia Aradau is Reader in International Relations in the Department of War Studies at King's College London. She is also the editor of Security Dialogue. Her current research focuses on the problematisation of the future in security practices and the governance of social and political life. This builds upon her earlier work on risk, exceptionalism, and catastrophe on which she has pbulished widely including, with Rens van Munster, Politics of Catastrophe: Genealogies of the Unknown (Routledge, 2011). Claudia is also developing a programme on critical methods in security studies and international relations, taking forward work published in the edited volume, with Jef Huysmans, Andrew Neal, Nadine Voelkner, Critical Security Methods: New Frameworks for Analysis (Routledge, 2015).

Academic Year 2013/14 - VIVIENNE JABRI: Postcolonial Critique

Vivenne Jabri is Professor of International Relations in the Department of War Studies at King's College London. Her research draws on critical and poststructural social and political theory, and Professor Jabri focuses in particular on the nexus between international politics and war. After the sucess of the previous two events in this format, in the acadmic year 2013/14 Professor Jabri visited the University of Warwick to give the inaugural Annual Masterclass in Critical Security Studies/International Relations (Advanced Theories and Methods) on postcolonial critique. Her recent monograph publication in this area is The Postcolonial Subject: A Critical Response to the Hegemony of the Liberal Peace (London: Routledge, 2012).

Academic Year 2012/13 - LENE HANSEN: Discourse Analysis

Lene Hansen is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen, and she is the director of a large research project on 'Images and International Security' funded by The Danish Council of Independent Research (2014-17). Her main research interests are International Relations Theory and Security Studies with a particular emphasis on poststructuralism, feminism and constructivism. In her Masterclass at Warwick, she provided attendees with explicit methodological guidelines and tips for 'how to do' discourse analysis in the study of security and international relations. Her related book is Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War (London: Routledge, 2006).

Academic Year 2011/12 - DIDIER BIGO - Thinking Tools for Analysing Security