Teaching/Learning through “Black Earth Rising”: Poststructural, Decolonial, and Feminist Readings

Abstract

The paper aims at reflecting on ways of teaching/learning international relations (IR) critical theories. It does so by analyzing the results of a teaching/learning exercise based on Netflix's series “Black Earth Rising” and put into practice with undergraduate students of a course on IR theory taught at the Argentinian Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Assuming that series of mass consumption work as cultural devices that inform power relations through the production of truths and subjectivities, the exercise had two main objectives: on the one hand, to develop and illustrate otherwise difficult-to-grasp concepts of IR theory and, on the other hand, to make the students aware of how widespread TV series participate in the constitution of both international politics and their own subjectivities.