HU Credits: 4

Degree/Cycle: 2nd degree (Master)

Responsible Department: Public Policy

Semester: Yearly

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Prof. Limor Samimian Darash

Coordinator Email: limor.darash@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours: בתיאום מראש

Teaching Staff:
Prof Limor Darash

Course/Module description:
In this course we will investigate the social, cultural and political phenomenon of the state of emergency and discuss various policy mechanisms for dealing with emergencies and future uncertainties. During the course, we will analytically map different concepts used by states and societies to conceptualize states of emergency, such as: crisis, disaster, emergency, war, and epidemic/pandemic. We will study critical theories (sociological and anthropological) of emergency and analyze policies and plans aimed at preparedness for emergencies in multiple areas such as: security, health, and environment.

Course/Module aims:

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
- Discuss policy mechanisms for dealing with emergency situations and future uncertainties.
- Distinguish between different conceptualizations of emergency and their meaning.
- Investigate and analyze materials using critical theories of emergency.

Attendance requirements(%):
100

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction:

Course/Module Content:
Background and basic concepts
The event: natural/un-natural, the politics of disaster
Approaches to the study of emergencies
Emergency discourse
Crisis (and time perception)
Between emergency and routine
From security to preparedness
Governing the future
Governing through Risk and uncertainty
Emergency exercises

Required Reading:
Samimian‐Darash, Limor. 2011. Governing through time: Preparing for future threats to health and security. Sociology of Health & Illness 33(6): 930-945.

Collier, Stephen J., and Andrew Lakoff. 2021. The Government of Emergency. Pp. 1-35. Princeton University Press.

Guggenheim, Michael. 2014. Introduction: Disasters as politics–politics as disasters. The Sociological Review 62(1_suppl): 1-16.
Fortun, Kim. 2001. Advocacy after Bhopal: Environmentalism, Disaster, New Global Orders. Pp. 1-24. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Anderson, Ben, and Peter Adey. 2012. Governing events and life: ‘Emergency’ in UK Civil Contingencies. Political Geography 31(1): 24-33.
Lakoff, Andrew. 2017. Unprepared: Global Health in a Time of Emergency. Pp. 1-12. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

Calhoun, Craig. 2004. A world of emergencies: Fear, intervention, and the limits of cosmopolitan order. Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie 41(4): 373-395.
Masco, Joseph. 2017. The crisis in crisis. Current Anthropology 58(S15): S65-S76.

Bryant, Rebecca. 2016. On critical times: Return, repetition, and the uncanny present. History and Anthropology 27(1): 19–31.
Roitman, Janet. 2014. Anti-Crisis. Pp. 1-14. Durham: Duke University Press.

Shapiro, Matan, and Nurit Bird-David. 2017. Routinergency: Domestic securitization in contemporary Israel. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 35(4): 637-655.
Vigh, Henrik. 2008. Crisis and chronicity: Anthropological perspectives on continuous conflict and decline. Ethnos 73(1): 5-24.

Foucault, Michel. 2007. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-78". Pp. 55-86, 115-134. New York & London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lakoff, Andrew. 2008. The generic biothreat, or, how we became unprepared. Cultural Anthropology 23(3): 399–423.

Lentzos, Filippa, and Nikolas Rose. 2009. Governing insecurity: Contingency planning, protection, resilience. Economy and Society 38(2): 230-254.
Opitz, Sven, and Ute Tellmann. 2015. Future emergencies: Temporal politics in law and economy. Theory, Culture & Society 32(2): 107-129.

Beck, Ulrich. 1992. Risk Society: Toward a New Modernity. Pp. 1-18. London: Sage.
Douglas, Mary, and Aaron Wildavsky. 1982. Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technical and Environmental Dangers. Pp. 186-198. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Grove, Kevin. 2012. Preempting the next disaster: Catastrophe insurance and the financialization of disaster management. Security Dialogue 43(2): 139-155.
Samimian-Darash, Limor. 2013. Governing future potential biothreats. Current Anthropology 54(1): 1–22.‏

Armstrong, Melanie. 2012. Rehearsing for the plague: Citizens, security, and simulation. Canadian Review of American Studies 42(1): 105-120.
Samimian-Darash, Limor. 2016. Practicing uncertainty: Scenario-based preparedness exercises in Israel. Cultural Anthropology 31(3): 359–386.‏
סמימיאן-דרש, לימור. 2018. תרחיש, מדיניות ומציאות: המקרה של תרגילי היערכות מבוססי-תרחישים. ביטחון סוציאלי 105: 1-24.

Additional Reading Material:
Shore, Cris, and Susan Wright. 2011. Conceptualizing policy: Technologies of governance and the politics of visibility. Cris Shore, Susan Wright, and Davide Pero, eds. Policy Worlds: Anthropology and Analysis of Contemporary Power. Pp. 1-25. New York: Berghahn Books.
Wedel, Janine R., Cris Shore, Gregory Feldman, and Stacy Lathrop. 2005. Toward an anthropology of public policy. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 600(1): 30-51.
Samimian‐Darash, Limor. 2009. A pre‐event configuration for biological threats: Preparedness and the constitution of biosecurity events. American Ethnologist 36(3): 478-491.

Lakoff, Andrew, Lorenzo D’Orsi, and Irene Falconieri. 2021. Time of emergency: Anthropological perspectives on global health governance: Interview with Andrew Lakoff. Antropologia Pubblica 7(2): 187-191.

Gregory Button. 2010. Disaster Culture: Knowledge and Uncertainty in The Wake of Human and Environmental Catastrophe. Pp.11-18. Walnut Creek, CA: Routledge.
Knowles, Scott Gabriel. 2012. The Disaster Experts: Mastering Risk in Modern America. Pp. 209-249. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Oliver-Smith, Anthony. 1996. Anthropological research on hazards and disasters. Annual Review of Anthropology 25: 303–328.

Adey, Peter, Ben Anderson, and Stephen Graham. 2015. Introduction: Governing emergencies: Beyond exceptionality. Theory, Culture & Society 32(2): 3-17.
Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. State of Exception. Pp. 1-31. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Beckett, Greg. 2013. The politics of emergency. Reviews in Anthropology 42(2): 85–101.
Fassin, Didier, and Mariella Pandolfi (Eds.). 2010. Contemporary States of Emergency: The Politics of Military and Humanitarian Interventions. Pp. 9-25. New York: Zone Books.
Redfield, Peter. 2005. Doctors, borders, and life in crisis. Cultural Anthropology 20(3): 328–361.
אופיר, עדי. 2003. טכנולוגיות מוסריות: ניהול האסון והפקרת חיים. תיאוריה וביקורת 22: 67-104.

Calhoun, Craig. 2010. The idea of emergency: Humanitarian action and global (dis)order. Fassin, Didier, and Mariella Pandolfi, eds. Contemporary States of Emergency: The Politics of Military and Humanitarian Interventions. Pp. 18-39. New York: Zone Books.

Beckett, Greg. 2013. Rethinking the Haitian crisis. In Millery Polyné, ed. The Idea of Haiti: Rethinking Crisis and Development. Pp.27–50. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Knight, Daniel M., and Charles Stewart. 2016. Ethnographies of austerity: Temporality, crisis and affect in Southern Europe. History and Anthropology 27(1): 1–18.
Koselleck, Reinhart. 2006. Crisis. Translated by Michaela W. Richter. Journal of the History of Ideas 67(2): 357–400.

Ochs, Juliana. 2011. Security and Suspicion: An Ethnography of Everyday Life in Israel. Pp. 35-63. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Samimian-Darash, Limor, and Nir Rotem. 2019. From crisis to emergency: The shifting logic of preparedness. Ethnos 84(5): 910-926.

Dean, Mitchell. 1999. Basic concepts and themes. Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society. Pp. 16-51. London: Sage.
Lakoff, Andrew, and Stephen J. Collier, eds. 2008. Biosecurity Interventions: Global Health and Security in Question. Pp. 33-60. New York: Columbia University Press.

Adey, Peter, and Ben Anderson. 2012. Anticipating emergencies: Technologies of preparedness and the matter of security. Security Dialogue 43(2): 99–117.
Aradau, Claudia, and Rens van Munster. 2012. The time/space of preparedness: Anticipating the ‘next terrorist attack.’ Space and Culture 15(2): 98–109.
Cooper, Melinda. 2006. Pre-empting emergence: The biological turn in the war on terror. Theory, Culture & Society 23(4): 113-135.

Amoore, Louise. 2013. The Politics of Possibility: Risk and Security beyond Probability. Pp. 55-78. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Aradau, Claudia, Luis Lobo-Guerrero, and Rens Van Munster. 2008. Security, technologies of risk, and the political: Guest editors’ introduction. Security Dialogue 39(2–3): 147–154.
Dean, Mitchell. 1999. Risk, calculable and incalculable. Deborah Lupton, ed. Risk and Sociocultural Theory: New Directions and Perspectives. Pp. 131-159. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ewald, Francois. 1991. Insurance and risks. Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, eds. The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Pp. 197–210. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Anderson, Ben, and Peter Adey. 2011. Affect and security: Exercising emergency in ‘UK civil contingencies’. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 29(6): 1092-1109.
Collier, Stephen J. 2008. Enacting catastrophe: Preparedness, insurance, budgetary rationalization. Economy and Society 37(2): 224–50.
Kaufmann, Mareile. 2016. Exercising emergencies: Resilience, affect and acting out security. Security Dialogue 47(2): 99-116.
Simon, Stephanie, and Marieke de Goede. 2015. Cybersecurity, bureaucratic vitalism and European emergency. Theory, Culture & Society 32(2): 79-106.

Grading Scheme :
Written / Oral / Practical Exam / Home Exam 30 %
Essay / Project / Final Assignment / Referat 45 %
Presentation / Poster Presentation / Lecture/ Seminar / Pro-seminar / Research proposal 15 %
Submission assignments during the semester: Exercises / Essays / Audits / Reports / Forum / Simulation / others 5 %
Attendance / Participation in Field Excursion 5 %

Additional information: