COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course offers a largely chronological and systematic survey of, and it will introduce students to, key modern & contemporary political thinkers and their contributions to political theory. Though each is taking a different focus, all authors provide ‘modern’ versions of political thought that confront the ‘modern condition’, the modern state, and (global) politics in sociological, philosophical and political terms. In their own distinct ways, they analyze, criticize, unpack and/or justify such key concepts as power, political order, modernity, rationalism, political violence, community, democracy, sovereignty, justice, legitimacy, plurality, difference, and the rule of law. The goal is a basic understanding of the work of the most influential modern and contemporary political theorists, the concepts they propose, and the problems they face.
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January 14: Introduction of the Course: To What End Do We Study Modern Political Thought?
Readings: None
MODERN REPUBLICANISM, CONSERVATISM, LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM
January 16: Modern Political Thought and Republicanism after Montesquieu and Kant: Contract Theory, Law, and Politics
Readings: None
January 21: Modern Conservatism and Community: Edmund Burke (Burke vs. Mill, Part I)
Readings: Edmund Burke, On the Revolution in France
January 23: Modern Liberalism, Liberty, and Individual Rights: John Stuart Mill (Burke vs. Mill, Part II)
Readings: John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Excerpts)
January 28: Socialism and Communism: Karl Marx
Readings: Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto
MAX WEBER AND KEY ISSUES OF POLITICAL MODERNITY AND
20TH CENTURY POLITICAL THEORY
January 30: Max Weber – Political Modernity and Vocations I
Readings: Max Weber, “Politics as Vocation”, pp.32-94
FIRST READING REFLECTION DUE.
February 4: Max Weber – Political Modernity and Vocations II
Readings: Max Weber, “Science as Vocation”, pp.1-31
MODERN CHALLENGES: TOTALITARIANISM, COLONIALISM, POWER, AND VIOLENCE
February 6: Carl Schmitt – Of Sovereignty and Enemies I
Readings: Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political [1932], pp.19-45
February 11: Carl Schmitt – Of Sovereignty and Enemies II
Readings: Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political [1932], pp.45-79
February 13: Antonio Gramsci – Hegemony and the Modern Prince
Readings: Antonio Gramsci, The Modern Prince, pp.58-89, 118-125;
February 18: Antonio Gramsci – Hegemony and the Modern Prince
Readings: Antonio Gramsci, The Modern Prince, pp.135-153, 181-188
February 20: Hannah Arendt – The Totalitarian Experience and the Modern Banality of Evil
Readings: Hannah Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, pp.460-479; Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, pp.21-55.
February 25: Hannah Arendt – Action, Power, and Violence under Modern Conditions
Readings: Hannah Arendt, “On Violence,” in Arendt, Crises of the Republic, Sections 1 & 2, pp.105-155.
February 27: Hannah Arendt – Action, Power, and Violence under Modern Conditions
Readings: Hannah Arendt, “On Violence,” in Arendt, Crises of the Republic, Sections 3 & 4, pp.156-198.
March 4: Frantz Fanon – Colonialism, Post-Colonialism, Power and Violence
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks [1952], Introduction & Chapters 1-3, pp.9-81; Chapter 8, pp.223-232.
March 6: Frantz Fanon – Colonialism, Post-Colonialism, Power and Violence
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks [1952], Introduction & Chapters 1-3, pp.9-81; Chapter 8, pp.223-232.
MODERN RATIONALISM AND ITS CRITIQUE: CONSERVATIVE AND RADICAL
March 11: Michael Oakeshott, the Critique of Modern Rationalism, and the Case for Conservative Libertarianism
Readings: Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1991 [1962]), chapter 1, pp.5-42.
March 13: IN-CLASS EXAMINATION
***SPRING BREAK***
March 25: Herbert Marcuse and the Critique of Modern Consumer Society
Readings: Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964), pp.1-35, 247-257.
March 27: Herbert Marcuse, the Modern Liberal Order, and the Concept of “Repressive Tolerance”
Readings: Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance,” in Robert Paul Wolf, Barrington Moore, Jr., and Herbert Marcuse, A Critique of Pure Tolerance (Boston: Beacon Press, [1965/1969] 1969), pp.81-123.
SECOND READING REFLECTION DUE.
April 1: Michel Foucault and the Critique of Modern Power
Readings: Michel Foucault, “Truth and Power,” in Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and other Writings (New York: Pantheon, [1977] 1980), pp.109-133.
RETHINKING LIBERALISM, COMMUNITARIANISM, DELIBERATION: MODELS OF DEMOCRACY AND JUSTICE
April 3: John Rawls and the Reconstruction of Liberalism I
Readings: John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 2001), Chapter 1, pp.1-38.
April 8: John Rawls and the Reconstruction of Liberalism II
Readings: John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, Chapter 2, pp.39-79.
April 10: Michael Walzer and Communitarianism
Readings: Michael Walzer, “The Communitarian Critique of Liberalism,” Political Theory 18, 1 (1990), pp.6-23.
COSMOPOLITANISM AND GLOBAL CHALLENGES
April 15: Jürgen Habermas – Discourse Ethics and Deliberative Democracy
Readings: Jürgen Habermas, “Three Normative Models of Democracy,” in Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory (Cambridge: Polity, 1998), pp.239-252.
April 17: NO CLASS: Make-up TBD. (Western Political Science Association)
April 22: Jürgen Habermas – Cosmopolitan Democracy and Global Constitutionalism
Readings: Jürgen Habermas: “Kant’s Idea of Perpetual Peace: At Two Hundred Years’ Historical Remote,” in Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory (Cambridge: Polity, 1998), pp.165-201
Additional Readings: Lars Rensmann, “Back to Kant? The Democratic Deficit of Habermas' Global Constitutionalism,” in Tom Bailey, ed., Deprovincializing Habermas: Global Perspectives (New Dehli and New York: Routledge, 2013).
April 24: Rethinking Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights, Reconstructing Philosophical Traditions: Seyla Benhabib and Beyond
Readings: Seyla Benhabib, “The Philosophical Foundations of Cosmopolitan Norms,” in Benhabib, Another Cosmopolitanism (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp.13-44; Cosmopolitanism from Below after Arendt and Adorno
Readings: Lars Rensmann, “Grounding Cosmopolitics: Rethinking Crimes against Humanity and Global Political Theory with Arendt and Adorno”
TERM PAPER DUE.
April 26-May 2: Final Exam (Look for Announcements)
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