Registration ends 07.4.2026 at 23:59 h

The seminar approaches protest as cultural practices of critique in which “the political” and its subject—collectives, their composition, and the forms of public through which they appear—are renegotiated.

In contemporary migration-related protests in the United States, this performative, world-making dimension of protest becomes especially visible. These are not only mobilizations against a particular policy, a governmental overreach, or an injustice suffered by a defined group. They often contest something more fundamental: the state’s claim to decide—now and for the future—who may count as “the people.” In that sense, migration protests frequently operate as collective liminal situations, in which membership, belonging, and political voice are suspended, tested, and reassembled in public. They bring to the foreground the question of the demos: who can claim it, on what grounds, through which forms of appearance, and with what consequences.

Across the term, we analyze how actions stage credibility, solidarity, and antagonism; how they address specific audiences and attempt to constitute them; how digital and offline infrastructures interlock (or not); how policing and administrative institutions shape the logic of protest. Cases from ongoing U.S. migration struggles serve as shared material for in-class analytic exercises and written work.

The course is organized in thematic blocks. Working with concrete cases and examples, we examine: bodies assembling, choreographies of protest; networks of care and protection; infrastructures; the semantic work of naming and framing; the construction of publics and counterpublics; the production of evidence, juridical and criminal-justice formats. Each block combines case materials (images, stories, video, organizational artifacts) with one or two core texts.

Regarding the submissions due for the seminar:

Part I:
For each session upload two questions concerning the session's topic and literature. The questions are to be uploaded at least one day in advance. After the session, submit a response paper explaining to what extent your questions were answered in the session.

Part II:
A 5-page essay on one of four topics/questions. Topics/questions will be set by the instructor.

The seminar’s goal is to equip students to analyze protests as forms of critique and subjectvation that work through ethical, aesthetic, and epistemic practices, and that are shaped by media, institutions, and the state. Using case-based and partly group-based work, students will strengthen interdisciplinary theory and research skills, practice difference-sensitive methods, and develop independent critical judgment and communication in an English-speaking setting.

Further information on teaching evaluation: https://www.leuphana.de/en/teaching/quality-management/evaluation/course-evaluation.html