This course covers several areas in contemporary social theory and links these areas back to several traditions of Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thinking.  The course also aims to link theoretical areas with new and emerging social and political issues. The substantive issues covered in the course vary by year, but may include:  technology, humanism, politics and violence, the new identity politics, transformations in the far-right, populism, postcolonial theory, global or world sociology, wars and technology; violent religious movements.