Check out the course webpage for more details! 

This course is a hybrid course with a short weekly recorded lecture and a 90 minute Zoom meeting to discuss and do hands-on learning activities. You will also get a short weekly curated list of things for you to listen to, read, and watch. 

The Zoom session for this class is at:

• Thursday 7:30 pm NZT
• Thursday 5:30 pm AEST

Class starts on 19 September, 2024

Course Instructor Dr. Tracey Jane Nicholls

In this course, you will encounter an approach to thinking about today’s political questions that stresses the skill-set of political thinking and theorising. Being a political theorist is something that can be learned by anyone interested in trying to make sense of their social world, and of worlds that haven’t been built yet. In addition to being introduced to questions of what happens, and to whom, when power relations shift. You will also be encouraged to take yourself seriously as a thinker and commentator on the politics of our time.

Course Objectives

• Understand the history of feminism (mostly told from the Global North, but with growing attention to critical voices from elsewhere), and the history of coalitions and common causes of BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa),
• Consider the struggles of each within a global community dominated by Global North power alliances (NATO, United Nations, IMF),
• Learn to speculate carefully and thoughtfully about future tensions and challenges for feminism in a BRICS-dominated future, and
• Learn to develop yourself as a political thinker within your own sphere of influence. 

Course Outline
Week 1 History, Framing, and How We Got Here

Week 2 What ‘Here’ Looks Like, and Where We Might Be Headed

Week 3 What Could Possibly Go Wrong? What Could Go Right?

Week 4 Can We Centre the Global South without BRICS? What Role Might Indigenous Thinking Play?