Introduction

PS140O: Projecting Power

Prof Wasow

2026-01-20

Why Projecting Power?




  • Personal
  • Academic

About Me

Who am I?




  • Worked in traditional and social media for about a dozen years

  • Went back to grad school to study the rise of mass incarceration

Scholar

How did nonviolent protests influence public opinion?

Producer

Projecting Power

Questions About Film & Media



  • Can we learn with mind and body?
  • Can we use film to travel across space and time?
  • Can we study films to better understand the power of media more generally?
  • Can we study narrative to better understand the power of story?

Film & Social Science


  • Can we use examples in films to illuminate and evaluate social science theory?
  • Can we use social science to better understand cases in films?
  • Can we use film to better see the role of the state (though often seemingly invisible)?
  • Can we use film to study how power operates?

Groups, States & Power

  • What makes a people?
  • What makes a state?
  • How do the few control the many?
  • How are states like organized crime? How do they differ?
  • How does power work both inside and outside of the state?
  • Are race and ethnicity better understood as ‘essences’ or ‘constructions’?
  • Are humans inherently ‘groupish’?
  • What kinds of tactics are effective for social movements?

TA: Parambir Dhillon

  • MPA student at Goldman School of Public Policy
  • Earned BA in Political Science from San José State University
  • Extensive experience in political research and advocacy
    • Former Director of Research at Invest in America
    • Research roles at Climate Power
  • Interests: research methodologies, policy evaluation, public safety, and AI in the criminal legal system
  • Active community organizer focused on media messaging and movement building

Course Overview

Each Week


  • One film (typically streamed at home)
  • Generally two primary texts
  • Some short additional texts
  • Every week aim to put texts in conversation with film
  • One video essay from students (sign-up this week)
  • Mix of lecture and discussion

About Films

  • Some films will contain material that is frustrating, offensive and/or disturbing
  • Film and media in this course contain sex, violence, racial and sexual stereotypes, and language, themes, and imagery that may be challenging
  • You are expected to watch the films in full but it is also acceptable to close your eyes, cover your ears, walk out, etc. if you find specific scenes especially challenging
  • Exceptions to watching films may be accommodated on a case-by-case basis after discussion with the professor

About Films

  • Please prepare yourself to engage provocative and unfamiliar subject matter as a part of our screenings, readings, and discussions

  • We are confident that you will find the effort rewarding within the context of the course and in the process of growing as a sensitive, open- minded, historically conscious, analytical thinker, writer, and film-viewer

How should we think about slurs, violence, etc?

  • What is the intent?
  • Is the use gratuitous?
  • What is the context?
  • It’s okay to be upset sometimes
  • Let’s talk

Participation


  • Each week we will screen a film, read related scholarship and discuss both in class and online

  • Attendance and active participation are essential parts of the course. Attendance will be taken at every class

  • Online participation will take place on bcourses and students are expected to contribute actively online

  • Post thoughts twice in first half of semester, twice in second half

  • 20% of grade

Video Essay

  • Each week, a small team of about three students will prepare a brief, approximately ten minute video essay

  • Video essays will generally be a ‘close reading’ of scenes from the film, typically in conversation with academic readings

  • Video essays may also focus on aspects of film craft, such the score, lighting, or cinematography. Can also focus on director, controversies

  • The video essay should not be a review of the film or a summary of facts

Video Essay (continued)

  • Aim to critically analyze a section of the film and, typically, assess it in the context of our readings. Bringing in outside readings or other relevant references is acceptable

  • The video essay can be shorter or longer but check with an instructor if a significantly different length

  • Submissions should include both the video and the essay script that includes citations

  • 20% of grade

Quiz and Final


  • Quiz every other week on films and readings

  • Six Quizzes, lowest score dropped (30%)

  • In class Final in Week 14 (30%)

Questions?

The Battle of Algiers

Possible Themes for Week 1

  • Origins of nations and nationalism
  • Pros and cons of violent and nonviolent tactics
  • Types of ‘actors’: FLN, military, civilians, press, UN…
  • Role of media, women in insurgency, children
  • Role of states in funding and banning film
  • Role of narrative:
    • Master narrative and counter-narratives

Why Stories and Political Science?


“The human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor. Everyone loves a good story; every culture bathes its children in stories.”


— Haidt (2012, 328)

Stories as Cognition

  • We don’t evaluate information objectively
  • We fit new information into pre-existing narratives
  • Our “narrative library” shapes how we interpret current events

Discussion:
What stories do we bring to watching The Battle of Algiers?

Let’s hear from: Adolfo, Lisa, Alondra, Theodore

Narrative in Political Science, Patterson & Monroe (1998)

What is Narrative?

  • A story
  • Human beings as actors, have agency
  • Often directed toward some goal
  • Some sequential ordering of events
  • A narrator’s perspective

Why Narrative in Social Science?

  • Individual
    • How we make sense of reality
      • Facts require interpretation, always ambiguity
      • Example: “I did well on that test”
    • Story of our lives
      • Our place in the world
      • “Even as adults, we continue to imagine our futures, families, careers, retirements, and major transitions.” (Patterson & Monroe, 320)

Why Narrative in Social Science?

  • Collective
    • We all inherit stories from family, school, culture, religion and so on that structure our thinking
    • “Metanarrative,” grand narratives of our time
      • Good vs evil, Order vs chaos, Individual vs society, Expansion of human rights, appear universal
    • “Master narrative,” stories that reinforce a social order
    • Community counter-narratives can also challenge established narratives

Putting Film and Text in Conversation



“Narratives are important in providing both individuals and collectives with a sense of purpose and place. The shared stories of a culture provide grounds for common understandings and interpretation. But as such, they may become sites of cultural conflict when those common understandings are challenged.”

— Patterson & Monroe (1998, 321)

Narrative Power



“The debate between integrationist and nationalist strategies was, at its core, a debate about storytelling.”


Not just a contest of force or votes but a battle over meaning

Narrative Power

  • Who gets to define what events mean?
  • Those who accept the status quo as legitimate are unlikely to challenge it
  • Activists seeking change must articulate counter-narratives

Discussion:
In The Battle of Algiers, who is “terrorist”? Who is “freedom fighter”?

Let’s hear from: Michelle, Veydra, Ethan, Faviola

Challenging Stock Narratives

Examples of narrative contestation:

  • Native Americans challenging 1950s “cowboys and Indians” games
  • Feminist rejection of fairy tales depicting women in passive roles
  • Paul Robeson changing lyrics to “Old Man River”

Discussion:
How does The Battle of Algiers challenge the French colonial narrative?

Let’s hear from: Camila, Jocelyn, Jash, Dana

Example: Counter-narrative in Civil Rights Movement

“Diane Nash was an amazing young woman, a college student in Nashville, about 20 years old in 1960, as they were beginning the sit-in demonstrations at lunch counters to demand integration. Her self-definition was this — we are people who are no longer willing to live with segregation; now, we understand you may kill us for that, but that’s your problem, not ours.”

—Thomas Ricks on NPR

Gloria Richardson, Protest and Media


“Not only does the photo capture a cinematic level of drama; it also displays Richardson’s courage and steely resolve. In a 2013 interview with Amy Goodman, Richardson describes the moment: ‘And then this guy started coming toward me. I thought he’s got to be crazy. And I don’t even know why I pushed the gun, but I know I was furious at that time.’”

— Barbara Smith, The ‘Creative Chaos’ of Gloria Richardson (1922–2021)

Gloria Richardson, Protest and Media



“The fact that we see a Black woman coolly facing off against a heavily armed white man in military uniform feels paradigm-shifting, especially when women were generally expected to be helpmates behind the scenes.”

— Barbara Smith, The ‘Creative Chaos’ of Gloria Richardson (1922–2021)

Silences Speak Volumes


What is left out is often what the teller takes to be “literally unremarkable”

  • Omissions reveal assumptions about shared meanings
  • What the narrator takes for granted

Discussion:
What does The Battle of Algiers not show? Whose perspective is absent?

Let’s hear from: Hana, Sarah, Matthew, Jocelyn

National Identity as Contested Narrative

  • Stories about origin and development of a nation provide shared sense of who we are
  • These narratives permeate culture through formal education and popular culture
  • Politicians often consciously rewrite history to achieve political goals

Discussion:
The Battle of Algiers was funded by the Algerian government. How does that shape the film?

Let’s hear from: Aarja, Taylor, Ana Maria, Angelica

Break

What Do We Mean by “Close Reading”

  • What’s going on?
  • What’s conveyed?
  • What directorial choices shape our experience?
  • Does the scene serve as a kind of symbol or analogy for something larger?
  • How does power work in the scene?
  • Where is the state? Who wields “legitimate use of violence”?

Wedding Scene

Discussion:
What stands out about the wedding scene?

Let’s hear first from: Sangwoo, Ava, Megan, Joaquin

Counter-narrative in the Wedding Scene

“Indigenous artists, musicians, painters, sculptors and writers also joined their compatriots in providing an anti-colonial ‘counter-discourse,’ reacting thereby to the popular culture of the urban pieds-noirs community, who tended to portray native men using five main stereotypes: ‘savage, poor, dirty, dishonest, and lascivious’ (Sivan 1979, p. 32). Similarly, native women were often depicted in their domestic space as prostitutes in alluring fantasist erotic settings.”
— Kahina Amal Djiar (2009) in “Symbolism and memory in architecture: Algerian anti-colonial resistance and the Algiers Casbah”

Counter-narrative in Art

“As a rebuke to French colonialist imagination in Algiers, Mohamed Racim, painted a series of works that revealed the power of indigenous cultural resistance. One of Racim’s favourite scenes described the faithfulness of the native population to their customs, as well as the strong sense of community that continued to characterise the lifestyle in the Casbah. It showed the urban ambience of the old medina area during a typical night of Ramadan. No sign at all of the French colonial presence in Algiers was depicted, as if the Casbah was a completely independent territory.”
— Kahina Amal Djiar (2009) in “Symbolism and memory in architecture: Algerian anti-colonial resistance and the Algiers Casbah”

Counter-narrative in Art

“The strength of this painting resides to a large extent in the socio-cultural specificities of the scene: terraces cornered by chatting women, streets inhabited at night by playing children and people socialising, with a series of illuminated minarets behind them, which symbolised the religious character of the celebration – and perhaps a deeper sense of persisting devotion to the Islamic faith.”
— Kahina Amal Djiar (2009) in “Symbolism and memory in architecture: Algerian anti-colonial resistance and the Algiers Casbah”

Counter-narrative in Art

“In another artwork, Racim painted a scene of a wedding party taking place in one of the Casbah’s courtyard houses (Figure 2). By placing the indigenous woman in the shape of the bride, he wanted to give her an intentionally ‘decent’ image.”
— Kahina Amal Djiar (2009) in “Symbolism and memory in architecture: Algerian anti-colonial resistance and the Algiers Casbah”

Brubaker: Politique du Pire?

Why a Politique du Pire?




“Ethnic and other insurgencies, for example, often adopt what is called in French a politique du pire, a politics of seeking the worst outcome in the short run so as to bolster their legitimacy or improve their prospects in the longer run.”
— Brubaker (2002), Ethnicity without Groups

Discussion:
How does the idea of a Politique du Pire help explain key scenes in The Battle of Algiers?

Let’s hear first from: Miguel, Lucia, Kaleena, Aisha

What radicalizes Ali?

Discussion:
What are some of the policies that seem to politicize people in The Battle of Algiers?

Let’s hear first from: Jennie, Luca, Saloni, Melinda

Role of Children?

Discussion:
What are some of the ways children are used in The Battle of Algiers?

Let’s hear first from: Sandra, Luca, Izzy, Garry

Role of Media?

Discussion:
What influence do media have in The Battle of Algiers?

Let’s hear first from: Adolfo, Lisa, Alondra, Theodore

Connecting Narrative to Power


“Politics is, at its most basic level, a contest to establish the meaning of events, because whoever constructs the public meaning of happenings sets the agenda for our collective lives.”


— Pride (2002, 1)

Questions?