Case file 6674 · Semester 1 2027
Read the forest floor as a diplomatic archive.
Each week takes one term from statecraft — trade, aid, espionage, sanctions, treaty and betrayal — and holds it against a real, citable phenomenon in mycorrhizal biology, until the metaphor either earns its keep or breaks. You leave having filed a Field Dispatch on a fungal double-cross and argued, in the Peace Conference, where the diplomacy framing helped you think and where it quietly lied to you.
The organism
Twelve weeks, one trunk.
Follow the hypha from Credentials to the Peace Conference. Each fruiting body is a week; the trunk is the argument the course is growing, not a timetable laid on its side.
- Week 1CredentialsCredentials — what it takes to be recognised as a network at all
- Week 2Trade agreementsTrade agreements — negotiated exchange with terms both sides can enforce
- Week 3Foreign aidForeign aid — resources moved to a needy party without an immediate return
- Week 4EspionageEspionage — extracting value from a network while paying nothing into it
- Week 5Sanctions and chemical warfareSanctions and chemical warfare — suppressing a rival rather than negotiating with it
- Week 6Double agentsDouble agents — the same actor mutualist on one front, exploitative on another
- Week 7Border disputesBorder disputes — contested territory and the recognition of who holds it
- Week 8Refugee crisesRefugee crises — displacement and reallocation after a shock
- Week 9Arms racesArms races — escalating measures and countermeasures between opposed interests
- Week 10Cold war and détenteCold war and détente — sustained non-aggression punctuated by rare, careful cooperation
- Week 11Treaties brokenTreaties broken — an established arrangement destroyed by an outside actor
- Week 12The peace conferenceThe peace conference — the closing session where every side's account of the negotiation gets checked
Who it is for
A first course in ecology is enough. Political science is not assumed.
The diplomatic vocabulary is a lens the course hands you, not a prerequisite. You should already be comfortable reading a primary paper; you will read several.
On file
- 01
Briefings
The twelve-week teaching schedule: what happens in each field window, and what leaves the room. - 02
Dispatches
What is covered, week by week, and which topics each lecture draws on. - 03
Returns
What is marked, what it is worth, and when it is due. - 04
Personnel
Who teaches the course and how to reach them.