As part of our collaboration with the #TechofPower project, Borderlines presents the #TechofPower toolbox, a collaborative resource for students, activists, thinkers and academics to help them understand and rethink the contemporary moment marred by continuous war.

This year, as the US surpasses half a million deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic and domestic fascists attempt a coup, the country will also mark the 20th anniversary of the US-led Global War on Terror. How did global and national politics coalesce into this present?  

Through the work of scholars, writers and activists, Technologies of Power: Tracing Empire at Home and Abroad explores how technologies of power and empire have shaped multiple terrains domestically and transnationally. The wars ‘over there’ have a lot to tell us about struggles ‘over here’— and vice versa. Through this public syllabus, or toolbox, we hope that writers, thinkers, activists and academics will be able to meditate surrounding the perpetual state of war the last twenty years abroad and its connection back on US soil.

Toolbox:

Fazelminallah Qazizai, “The Drone Unit that Helped the Taliban Win the War,” Newlines Magazine, September 15 2021.

Steinmetz-Jenkins, Daniel, “The Problem with Making War Humane,” The Nation, September 16 2021.

Ismay, John, “Serving in a Twenty-Year War,” The New York Times, September 8 2021.

Little, Douglas, “Mission Impossible: The CIA and the Cult of Covert Action in the Middle East,” Diplomatic History, Vol: 28, Issue: 5, 663-701.

Ackerman, Spencer. Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump. Viking: New York, (2021).

Al-Balushi, Samar. “Geographies of war-making in East Africa,” Africa is a Country, (2014).

Li, Darryl. “A Jihadism Anti-Primer,” MERIP, Vol: 276, (2015).

Do you have a suggestion for our #techofpower toolbox? Tweet with the hashtag and we’ll post it here.

Follow us on twitter @techofpower and stay tuned for the next talk on 09/24. To attend the online webinar RSVP here.

Prepared with the editorial assistance of Nishat Akhtar.