Spaces of Exception

A multidisciplinary course, using the tools of geography, architecture, sociology, and political science, looking at spaces around the world that are set apart – legally, socially, and infrastructurally – from their surrounding environments. These spaces include refugee camps, American Indian reservations, migrant detention centers, Guantanamo Bay, autonomous zones, gated communities and government housing, concentration and internment camps, etc. Drawing on philosophers such as Giorgio Agamben, Carl Schmitt, and Walter Benjamin who theorized the term “state of exception”, we will use a spatial lens to study cases from around the world, past and present. How were these spaces formed, why do they exist, and what do they tell us, both about themselves and the world that surrounds them?



Matt Peterson directed the documentary features Scenes from a Revolt Sustained (2015) and Spaces of Exception (2019), and co-edited the books In the Name of the People (2018), The Mohawk Warrior Society (2022), and The Reservoir (2022). He is an organizer at Woodbine, an experimental space in New York City.



Malek Rasamny directed the documentary Spaces of Exception (2019), and co-edited the book The Mohawk Warrior Society (2022). He is currently a doctoral candidate at Paris Nanterre University where he is researching the social phenomenon of reincarnation amongst the Druze of Lebanon./