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Introduction to Political Thought (Spring 2010)

Page history last edited by ike sharpless 13 years, 7 months ago

Introduction to Political Thought

 

Class Notes to Date

 

 

Course Description: This course is intended to provide a broad overview of Western political thought. The focus each class is on specific authors and their ideas, and one of the core learning objectives is to gain proficiency reading primary texts from a range of different cultural and political backgrounds. Particular emphasis will be placed on the development of key political and ethical philosophies, including contractarianism, utilitarianism, liberalism, socialism, realism and consequentialism. This course engages with the following thinkers: Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Rousseau, Burke, Marx, Bentham, Mill, Rawls, Habermas, Foucault, Appiah, Singer, Shiva, Fukuyama, Huntington, and Sen.

 

Reading Response Guidelines: For each of the three modules, select one or more work/author to write a reading response to. Each reading response can be turned in anytime up to the end of the module in question, and should demonstrate both an understanding of the thinker’s key ideas and some critiques of their potential shortcomings. Each reading response should be 3-4 pages long; clarity is valued over length. Ideally, I would like you to compare and contrast the views of two of the authors discussed to date. If you choose to focus on only one author, I expect a greater level of detail and scrutiny. You are expected to learn from the comments and suggestions I provide on previous reading responses: in essence, what I am looking for is a balance between demonstrating that you've thoroughly read the works in question (and aren't just regurgitating the class notes) and an engagement with your critical views on those works--too much of your opinion and I can't tell that you've done the reading, and too much outlining the text and I don't get any sense that you've grappled critically with the text at all.

 

 

Student Upload Guidelines: You are expected to upload a relevant link, video, or other media source with a comment relating the ideas of the thinkers we are discussing to a pertinent current issue. The mechanism for logging on to the pbworks site will be explained in class. 

 

Some useful writing tips

 

 

Relevant Assignment Dates 

Date Session Name Assignment
2/11 Machiavelli, The Prince First reading response due
3/30 Mill, Utilitarianism, day 2 Second reading response due
4/27 Shiva, radical environmentalism Long paper outline due
5/4 Sen, "Development as Freedom" Third reading response due
5/17 Long Papers Due Guidelines forthcoming

 

 

Current Events Assignments

Date Session Name Assignment
2/11 Machiavelli, The Prince upload on Plato-Machiavelli
3/4 Rousseau, Social Contract Theory, day 4 upload on Hobbes-Rousseau
3/30 Socialism and Marx, day 2 Bentham-Marx
4/13 Habermas, Deliberative Democracy Upload on Rawls-Feminism
5/4 Sen, "Development as Freedom" Upload on Habermas/Fung-Anarchism

 

 

Political Thought link archive

 

Political Thought Course Readings

 

Aborted course link for Fall 2010 course: Introduction to Political Thought (Fall 2010)

 

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