Our three module seminars are student-led. Their benefit for your individual learning process is contingent upon your active participation in these seminars. Each seminar is dedicated to a particular activity. A mini lecture (seminar 1), a Westminster-style debate (seminar 2) and the production of a review article (seminar 3). Each seminar requires some homework. Please read the seminar instructions well in advance and come prepared! Attendance is mandatory. If you cannot attend these seminars, you need to do a make-up assignment. In a 500-word reflection, you need to identify and engage with a claim made in a reading pertaining to one of the topics in this module.

Activity: Teach your peer

For this seminar, we ask everyone to give a 5-minute mini lecture in your study group. Each student chooses one or two of the mandatory readings on one of the respective topics (that is: War in Political Theory, Sociologies of War, or War and Technology), identifies a 'puzzle', a contradiction or a claim that you would like to contest and put up for discussion in the group (NB: you may take the questions provided in the lecture descriptions as a point of departure). After the mini lecture, the other students in the group will have 5 minutes to ask questions (we have 10 minutes for each student). We want every student to upload a 2-slide powerpoint (slide 1: key arguments of the text(s) chosen; slide 2: the puzzle). Bring a laptop to the ALC at the day of the seminar.

Pedagogical idea:

develop and practice presentation skills (talking in front of others)
identifying a puzzle, a contestable claim in the literature facilitates critical and reflexive reading and debating (argumentation skills)