Terrorism: Shifting Paradigms (CRIM30015)

This subject examines the various dimensions of terrorism and its manifestations. This includes the nation state's capacity to authorise and to create the conditions for the practices known as terrorism. In this subject we interrogate the role of the nation state and the rhetoric/s of anti-terrorism that both produce and contain acts known as terrorism. We look at the psychology of both the nation state and the terrorist through different analytical approaches. To this end we examine the function of different terrorist acts - including suicide bombing in New York and Israel/Palestine, assassinations and bombings in Northern Ireland and England, mass shootings such as by white supremacists and Incels, and practices of state terror in the context of acts of genocide, counter-terrorism including the U.S. drone assassination program and torture. All of these examinations are used to assist in trying to think about a new way of conceptualising violence performed by the state, the individual and the group.