|
Teaching
Selected recent seminars
Approaches to the History of Political Thought
This course examines some of the most influential recent statements of method in the history of political thought, alongside work by the same authors that may (or may not) put those methods or approaches into practice. We read works by Quentin Skinner, Reinhart Koselleck, J.GA. Pocock, Leo Strauss, Sheldon Wolin, Michael Oakeshott, Michel Foucault, and David Scott among others, with some emphasis on writings about Hobbes and questions of sovereignty and the state.
Global Justice
What duties do states, societies, and their members have beyond their borders? Are obligations of justice global in scope? What is the moral standing of states? This course examines some of the major political theoretical writings about issues of global justice, particularly in light of global social structures and international inequalities. We consider Immanuel Kant's contribution to cosmopolitan theory and John Rawls's Law of Peoples, along with scholarly reaction to each of these texts. We read a number of contemporary philosophers and political theorists on issues of global distributive and political justice, cosmopolitan democracy, sovereignty, global poverty, and military intervention.
Liberalism confronts Democracy: Tocqueville and Mill
This course focuses on liberalism's wary embrace of democracy through an examination of the political thought of Tocqueville, JS Mill, and selected contemporaries. We look at their arguments for, and worries about, democratic politics in the context of selected topics (e.g., American events, French revolutions of 1789, 1830, and 1848; British Reform Acts). We explore ways in which debates over expanding political participation intersected with other themes (e.g., the nation, representation, gender, moral character, class, slavery, empire, and international politics).
|
