In 1831, while traveling in America, Alexis Tocqueville noted that
no other country in the world cared as little for philosophy as the United
States. Others have noted aptly that America’s greatest contribution to
political thought may be the idea of America itself. How that idea took shape
is an extraordinary and ongoing story. The founding of The United States of
America is marked by a debate in which multiple and competing ideas of
governance and statehood clash and combine. While the enlightenment principles
of liberalism, including liberty, property, and individual rights dominate
America’s founding documents, these ideas remain riddled with ambiguities and
contestation. Thus, the mature form of American democracy was not present in
the seeds that the Europeans settlers carried with them from the old world – as
Tocqueville claims; rather, American democracy emerges through debate and
dialogue.
The following course will provide an introduction to American
Political Thought through an examination of these ambiguities and
contestations. We will trace the
development of American Democracy through the debates and dialogues that
advanced and challenged the very grounds upon which the country was founded. The course begins with an exploration of the
multiple and competing philosophical traditions that influenced the founding of
the country including liberalism, Puritanism, and the often ignored Native
American Indians. Part II examines the practice of democracy in America
focusing on the late days of antebellum America through the beginning of the 20th
century, a tumultuous time in which the lofty rhetoric of the Declaration of
Independence and the Bill of Rights began to take on new meaning. While the
course is rooted in the historical circumstances of the founding and
re-founding of America, students are highly encouraged to draw parallels
between historical readings and the contemporary political environment.
Media and Politics
From
the power of the political pamphlet and partisan press in the 18th
century to the hyper-connected digital age of Facebook and Twitter, the
following course explores the relationship between media and politics in
American society. We’ll ask: How do
politics and governance change as the media landscape changes? How does media
and news influence advocacy, politics and governance?
The course will be divided into four parts: 1) An introductory overview of media and news consumption; 2) The history of media and politics in America; 3) The role of media in advocacy, campaigns, elections and governance; 4) Politics in the digital age.
The course will help students develop a
theoretical and historical context to better understand the interrelationship
between media and politics as well as their own relationship to media as
producers, distributors and consumers (After all, who puts the you in
YouTube). The class will provide
students an opportunity to critically engage with social media and develop
fundamental skills that could potentially translate to workplace.
Analysis and Interpretation
This
course will help students to cultivate and exercise analytical and
communication skills through the craft of writing. Students will analyze and evaluate arguments
and evidence, write for a verity of different audiences, conduct political
science research, and present research findings in an upper-level academic/professional
paper. The course is writing-intensive, and satisfies the University’s junior
year writing requirement.
The course will help students to:
- Analyze and
evaluate arguments; understand how different elements of an argument fit
together and how evidence is used;
- Write for
diverse audiences, including: prospective employers, policy-makers, clients,
opinion leaders and a general public;
- Write with
clarity and precision;
- Revise and
edit your work and others;
- Formulate
research questions;
- Hone research
skills, including finding sources of information and using sources in a
focused way to answer research questions.
Introduction to Political Theory: Investigating Democracy
The following
course seeks to investigate conceptions and practices of democracy through an
engagement with historical and contemporary political thought. The course is both an introduction to
political theory and an invitation to engage in the ongoing discussion and
debate that constitutes political theory.
Accordingly, students are
encouraged to consider the texts selected for this course as part of the
conversation that will play out in seminar.
The class conversation will not be limited to traditional texts, but
will also take into consideration our own political practices and cultural
consumption: film, videos, music, art, etc.
What we might call ‘theory by other means.’ How might we read these as
texts alongside traditional political philosophy? How do they contribute to or
problematize our understanding of democracy?
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