Between Fiction and Politics (Mis)Representations of the United Nations in Literature and Movies

Sciences Po Grenoble 2020-2021 Fall Semester Cours spécialisé

Between Fiction and Politics (Mis)Representations of the United Nations in literature and movies

Teacher: Dr. Marieke LOUIS Associate Professor in Political Science and International Relations Contact : [email protected]

§ Course description

This course suggests re-visiting the criticisms often address to the United Nations (naive idealism, paralysis, bureaucratization, power politics, etc.) not through the lenses of International Relations (IR) theories but from the perceptions of writers and movie directors. Through their professional activity and art, they have shared (often on a broader scale than academics) their representations of the United Nations. What are these representations? To what extent do they accurately reflect what actually happens within the United Nations and its field of action? How are these representations spread and received? How do these works articulate fiction with politics? While priority will be given to the analysis of a corpus of selected documents (books and movies), attention will also be paid to some theoretical works (in political science, sociology and history) in order to help us understand the way in which particular media may influence our own representations of international institutions. Thus, this course aims at bridging the gap between popular representations and academic knowledge, not in a confrontational way but through a better understanding of their respective production mechanisms and goals. This course is open to any student who has an interest for international politics, international organizations and media studies in general.

§ Assignments

Final exam (100%): the final exam will take place in January. It will last 2 hours and consist in 4 questions (5 pts each) related to the books/movies under study as well as the collective discussion held for each session (see below). The questions will all combine both factual and analytical elements.

Collective discussion: during the first session, students are asked to constitute several teams. The teams will remain the same until the end of the semester. At the beginning of each class, each team will be provided a question to discuss for 15-20’. Each team then designate a spokesperson whose task is to sum up the discussion of the team in front of the other teams.

There should be different spokespersons each week so everyone gets a chance to speak in public.

The readings are mandatory for each session in order to prepare for both the collective discussion and the written exams. They are available online through the Chamilo platform.

PROGRAM

Session 1: Fiction, Science and The United Nations: A Short Introduction

- Q&A on the syllabus - Constitution of the teams - Introduction

PART I: LITERATURE

Session 2 : From the League of Nations to the UN: depicting the international bureaucracy Fiction: Excerpts from Albert Cohen, Belle du Seigneur, Folio, 2012 [1968] [English version available under the title: Her Lover, Penguin] Academia: Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore, « The Politics, Power and Pathologies of International Organizations », International Organizations, 53(4), 1999, p. 699-732.

Session 3: A diplomat-writer inside the UN Fiction: Excerpts from Romain Gary (Fosco Sinibaldi), L’homme à la colombe (The man with a dove), Gallimard, 1984 [1958] Academia: Kent Kille, From manager to visionary: the secretary-general of the United Nations, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006

Session 4: The UN, Aid and Development in Haiti Fiction: Excerpts from Mischa Berlinski, Peacekeeping, New York, Sarah Crichton Books, 2016. Academia: Laura Zanotti, “Cacophonies of Aid, Failed State Building and NGOs in Haiti: setting the stage for disaster, envisioning the future”, Third World Quarterly, vol. 31, n°5, 2010, p. 755-771. John Karlsrud, “Special Representatives of the Secretary-General as Norm Arbitrators? Understanding Bottom-up Authority in UN Peacekeeping”, Global Governance, 19, 2013, p. 525-544.

Session 5: The UN: diplomats versus activists? Reading: Excerpts from John Le Carré, The Constant Gardener, 2001 & excerpts from the movie: The Constant Gardener, Fernando Meirelles, 2005. Academia: Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1998 (chapter 1) Oral presentation: The Constant Gardener: a moralistic novel?

PART II: MOVIES

Session 6: The UN and Peacekeeping: the Bosnian War, Part 1 Movie: Danis Tanovic, No Man’s land, 2001 (98’) (full movie) Academia: Béatrice Pouligny, Peace operations seen from below: UN missions and local people, Hurst, CERI, 2006, p. 96-154.

Session 7: The UN and Peacekeeping: the Bosnian War, Part 2 Movie: Peter Kosminsky, Warriors, 1999 (171’) (excerpts) Academia: Severine Autesserre, Peaceland : conflict resolution and the everyday politics of international intervention, Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 1-19 (introduction)

Session 8: Judging War Criminals Movie: Marcel Schüpbach, Carla’s list, 2007 (95’) (excerpts) Academia: David Bosco, Rough Justice: The International Criminal Court in a World of Power Politics, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014 (excerpts)

Session 9: Revisiting the Rwandan Genocide and International Criminal Justice TV show: Hugo Blick, Black Earth Rising, BBC Two and Netflix, 2018 (excerpts) Academia: Michael Barnett, Eyewitness to Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda, Cornell University Press, 2002.

Additional references on novel and movie interpretation in the social sciences Badel, Laurence (dir.), Ecrivains et diplomates: l'invention d'une tradition, XIXe-XXIe siècles, Paris, Armand Colin, 2012. Casetti, Francesco, Les théories du cinéma depuis 1945, Paris, Nathan, 1999. Clark, Michael, Politics and the media : film and television for the political scientist and historian, Pergamon Press, 1979. Dahlberg, Lincoln, Phelan, Sean, Discourse theory and critical media politics, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Delage, Christian, Guigueno, Vincent, L’historien et le film, Paris, Gallimard, 2004 Dubois, Jacques, Les Romanciers du réel. De Balzac à Simenon, Paris, Le Seuil, 2000. Ethis, Emmanuel, Sociologie du cinéma et de ses publics, 3e éd., Paris, Armand Colin, 2014. Fay, Jennifer, Inhospitable World: Cinema in the Time of the Anthropocene, New York : Oxford University Press, 2018. Fuchs, Anne, Phantoms of War in Contemporary German Literature, Films and Discourse. The Politics of Memory, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Glover Robert, Teaching politics beyond the book : film, texts, and new media in the classroom, New York, Bloomsbury, 2013. Kracauer, Siegfried, Theory of film: the redemption of physical reality, London, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1960 (also available under the title “The Nature of Film” for the British edition). Lahire, Bernard, Ce qu’ils vivent, ce qu’ils écrivent. Mises en scène littéraires du social et expériences socialisatrices des écrivains, Paris, Editions des archives contemporaines, 2011. « Les séries, politique fiction », Quaderni, no 88, 205 (special issue coordinated by Antoine Faure and Emmanuel Taïeb). Magini, Marco, Comme si j’étais seul, Gallimard, 2016 (novel, available in Italian Come Fossi Solo but not translated in English yet). Morin, Edgar, Le cinéma ou l’homme imaginaire : essai d’anthropologie sociologique, Paris, Les éditions de minuit, 1956.

Perrot, Martyne, de la Soudière, Martin “Littérature et sciences humaines. Entre tension et tentation”, in Hunsmann, Moritz, Kapp, Sébastien (dir.), Devenir chercheur. Écrire une thèse en sciences sociales, Paris, Éditions de l’EHESS, 2013, p. 185-199. Rancière, Jacques, La fable cinématographique, Paris, Seuil, 2001. Riot-Sarcey, Michèle, L’Utopie en questions, Saint Denis, Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, 2001. Rufin, Jean Christophe, Un léopard sur le garrot, Paris, Gallimard, 2008 (novel). Sapiro, Gisèle, La responsabilité de l’écrivain. Littérature, droit et morale en France (XIXe- XXIe siècle), Paris, Seuil, 2011. Snyder, Robert Lance, John Le Carré’s Post-Cold War Fiction, Columbia, University of Missouri Press, 2017. Taïeb, Emmanuel, “The Wire. Séries et sciences sociales”, Revue française de science politique, vol. 67, no 4, 2017, p. 731-736.

* Note that there is a collection at the Presses Universitaires de France directed by Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer and Tristan Garcia from 2012 to 2018 dedicated to the sociological and political analysis of TV Shows (The experts, Six Feet under, The Wire, House of Cards, etc.) (books are only available in French)