FMS 161: War on Terror Spring 2025
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FMS 161: War on Terror
Spring 2025
MW 3:00-4:20pm
Course Description
Through popular culture and theory, this course will explore the “War on Terror” as both a cultural object and an ideological formation that has material and aesthetic dimensions. Using popular culture, this course will explore the varying dimensions of the “War on Terror,” probing questions of genre, national identity, security, war, gender, citizenship, and memory, amongst others.
Course Requirements:
Attendance – 20%
Participation – 20%
Discussion Posts – 40% Final Paper – 20%
Required Readings:
Sohail Daulatzai, Fifty Years of“The Battle ofAlgiers”: Past as Prologue
Various articles: ALL of the course readings will be available as PDF’s to download from the course website. Be sure that your UCI affiliated email is active so that you can receive updates and announcements for the course.
Screenings: Be sure that your UCI Gmail is active, as you will be sent links to screen the films for the course. You MUST be ready to discuss the films in class and in relationship to the readings for that week.
Attendance: Your attendance, preparation and active participation are crucial not only to your final evaluation, but also to the overall success of the course. This means a few things: one, attendance is strongly encouraged, as it contributes to your attendance portion of your grade but also your ability to participate. You are allowed one unexcused absence. But any unexcused absences after that will result in your final grade dropping 1/3 of a letter grade, with another 1/3 for every unexcused absence after that. Only extenuating circumstances will be considered, and proof may be required.
Participation: Your participation grade will reflect the care and attention you give to the readings, screenings and lecture material. You MUST be prepared to discuss the readings in full and complete detail in class. Failure to do will adversely impact your grade. Keep in mind, that raising your hand and talking in class does not mean you will get an automatic “A.” Your grade is based upon engagement in class, generosity toward classmates, excitement about learning, and raising the level of the conversation. Please note that dominating the conversation, hostility toward others, or lowering the level of discussion will result in deductions to this grade. It is not helpful to state if you dislike a screenings or readings; rather, think through why and how a film deviated from your expectations and what you learn from encountering different ways of approaching conventions of form, narrative, representation, politics, etc., or what about a reading you struggled to understand (including struggling to understand its relevance).
Also, I reserve the right to give out pop quizzes throughout the quarter based on the materials. These quizzes will count towards your Participation grade.
Discussion Board: You MUST come to our class meeting with the readings and film for that week completed, processed and ready to discuss in a thoughtful and critically engaged way. In order to help you accomplish this, you are required to post to the course Discussion Board every week your thoughts on the assigned readings and their relationship to the screening for that week – meaning that no later than 12pm on Monday and Wednesdays.
Each discussion board post is worth 5 points each (for a total of 10 points per week). You are expected to post 200 words MINIMUM for EACH article and for EACH film. These posts are NOT to be summaries, and so you will receive a full 5 points if you state the main argument of the article and show your critical engagement with the ideas being expressed in the readings and any substantive questions/comments you may have about them. It’s not enough to say “I dis/agree …” You must explain why. Grades will be deducted on a full point or half point basis, meaning you can receive a 4.5 points, for example. Late submissions will automatically receive a full point deduction per day, and anything submitted more than three days late will receive an automatic zero for the assignment.
Final Paper: Your final paper will be 6-8 pages and will be a deeper dive on any one of the films that we have screened during the quarter. You are expected to use the reading materials that were assigned, as well as AT LEAST three other outside sources on the film and topic you are exploring. More details on this later.
Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Generators (Chat GPT, etc.): Although AI programs such as ChatGPT can serve useful for providing general information regarding a particular topic—which in turn, could assist as a starting point for brainstorming and generating ideas—it is important to note that the content produced by such programs may be inaccurate and/or incomplete. Especially given the nature of this course and its emphasis on theory-based materials and abstract concepts, AI programs pose an even greater potential of producing poor quality output due to their limits of thinking at the level of abstraction required for this course and the course assignments.
Additionally, AI programs pose an issue in terms of stifling critical and independent thinking that are necessarily central objectives of this course. Therefore, the use of any artificial intelligence (AI) generators, to any extent, for any of the assigned materials in this course is PROHIBITED and is considered a form of academic dishonesty. This includes the use of AI to generate content and your modification of that AI generated content, as well as the use of AI to modify/refine your content. All assignments must be completed authentically (human-written).
To detect the use of AI, all course assignments are evaluated using AI detectors. Provided that not all AI detectors are entirely reliable, three different AI detectors are used to ensure detection reliability. Any use of AI programs to produce content for any course assignments will result in an automatic zero, a possible “F” in the course, and possible disciplinary actions by the University. By remaining in this course, you agree to these parameters and the use of AI generators to evaluate course assignments. To avoid any false detection of AI, please make sure to appropriately cite (in proper format) all assigned readings used in your assignment responses.
Finally, I reserve the right to use these AI detectors at any point during the quarter, even retroactively on a Discussion Board. In other words, even after I’ve submitted a grade for a Discussion Board, if I feel it necessary, I may go back and run the AI detectors to re-evaluate your grade, and if you are found to have violated this policy I will give you an automatic zero and a potential “F” in the course.
UCI is committed to ensuring equal opportunities and access to the educational process for all students. I am sympathetic to the challenges confronting students and open to accommodating or helping you address any problems or concerns you may have. Please let me know if we can improve our teaching for students with disabilities, or any other needs or challenges. You may also seek assistance or information from the Disability Services Center, (949) 824-7494, TDD (949) 824-6272.
Heads up: This course will include explicit material that may be offensive to some. If you are concerned about being subjected to such material, then it is recommended that you do not enroll inthis course.
Lastly, regarding email correspondence: I will be responding to student emails Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm. Any emails received after 5pm will be responded to the next day, and any emails received after 5pm on Friday will be responded to the following Monday.
Note that NO incompletes will be given in this course.
Course Schedule
Week 1
March 31st
April 2nd
Introductions
Week 2
April 7th
Screening: Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies A People (50 min, SutJhally 2006)
Readings: Edward Said: “Islam Through Western Eyes”; Stam and Spence: “Colonialism, Racism and Representation”; Kundnani and Kumar, “Race, Surveillance and Empire”
April 9th
Screening: The Siege (116 mins, Edward Zwick, 1998)
Readings: Wilkins and Downing, “Mediating Terrorism: Text and Protest in Interpretations of The Siege”; Edwards, “Of Cain and Abel: African-American Literature and theProblem of Inheritance after 9/11”
Week 3
April 14th
Screening: World Trade Center (Oliver Stone, 2006)
Readings: Anker, “Villains, Victims and Heroes: Melodrama, Media and September 11”;
Randell, “’It Was Like a Movie’: The Impossibility of Representation in Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center”; Lubin, “Mourning in America”
April 16th
Readings: Kaplan: “Transformations in Language and Space”
Week 4
April 21st
Screening: The Battle ofAlgiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)
Reading: Daulatzai: Fifty Years of“The Battle ofAlgiers”: Past as Prologue (Introduction-
p.61)
April 23rd
Readings: Daulatzai: Fifty Years of“The Battle ofAlgiers”: Past as Prologue (p.62-79)
Week 5
April 28th
Screening: Syriana (Stephen Gaghan, 2005)
Readings: de Waard, “The Global Social Problem Film”; De Genova, “Antiterrorism, Race and the New Frontier: American Exceptionalism, Imperial Multiculturalism and the Global Security State”
April 30th
Readings: Stam and Shohat, “The Imperial Imaginary”
Week 6
May 5th
Screening: American Sniper (Clint Eastwood, 2014)
Readings: Lang, “American Sniper’s ‘Muslim Problem’”; Hedges, “Killing Ragheads for Jesus”
May 7th
Readings: Saito, “Colonial Presumptions: The War on Terror and the Roots of American Exceptionalism”
Week 7
May 12th
Screening: Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow, 2012)
Readings: Deylami, “Playing the Hero Card”; Leopold and Henderson “Tequila, Painted Pearls and Prada: How the CIA Helped Produce Zero Dark Thirty”; Gilmore, “Zero Dark Thirty and the Writing of Post-9/11 History”;
May 14th
Readings: Kaplan, “Where is Guantanamo?”
Week 8
May 19h
Screening: The Feeling of Being Watched (Assia Boundaoui, 2018) or (T)error (Lyric Cabral and David Sutcliffe, 2015)
Readings: Aaronson, “The Sting”; Simone Browne, “Who Watches the Watchers?”;
May 21st
Readings: Bamford, “The NSA is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center”
Week 9
May 26th NO CLASS
May 28th
Screening: Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)
Readings: Amago, “Ethics, Aesthetics, and the Future in Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men”Chaudhary, “Humanity Adrift: Race, Materiality, and Allegory in Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men”; Lattimer, “Bio-Reproductive Futurism: Bare Life and the Pregnant
Refugee in Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men”;
Week 10
June 2nd
Screening: Do Not Resist (Craig Atkinson, 2016)
Readings: Daulatzai, “Let’s Not Normalize This Thing Called ‘Terrorism’”; Husain, “Terror and Abolition”; Schrader, “SWAT’s Paramilitary Fever Dream”; Kaba, “The Journey Continues”
June 4th
Readings: TBA
FINAL PAPERS DUE: TBA
2025-04-18