Fall and spring semesters.

[PT] A consideration of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Western political theory. Topics to be considered include the fate of modernity, identity and difference, power, representation, freedom, and the state. This year’s readings may include works by the following authors: Freud, Weber, Benjamin, Heidegger, Arendt, Derrida, Foucault, Berlin, Butler, Connolly, and Agamben. This course fulfills the requirement for an advanced seminar in Political Science.

Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Professor Dumm.

[IL, SC] We live in an era of mobility: movement of goods, services, capital, ideas, culture, and–most importantly–people. International migrations reshape politics, markets, and societies. They generate challenges and opportunities for individuals, families, communities, businesses, political parties, governments, and international organizations. Many current political debates revolve around questions concerning transnational movement: How can states manage migratory flows, both effectively and ethically? Do international migratory flows erode sovereignty?

(Offered as POSC 467 [SC] and SWAG 467) The goal of this seminar is illuminate the complex character of social movements and civil society organizations and their vital influence on Indian democracy. Social movements have strengthened democratic processes by forming or allying with political parties and thereby contributed to the growth of a multi-party system. They have increased the political power of previously marginalized and underprivileged groups and pressured the state to address social inequalities.

[PT] Should Marx be given yet another chance? Is there anything left to gain by returning to texts whose earnest exegesis has occupied countless interpreters, both friendly and hostile, for generations? Has Marx’s credibility survived the global debacle of those regimes and movements which drew inspiration from his work, however poorly they understood it? Or, conversely, have we entered a new era in which post-Marxism has joined a host of other “post-”phenomena?

[IL] Other than war, punishment is the most dramatic manifestation of state power. Whom a society punishes and how it punishes are key political questions as well as indicators of its character and the character of the people in whose name it acts. This course will explore the connections between punishment and politics with particular reference to the contemporary American situation. We will consider the ways crime and punishment have been politicized in recent national elections as well as the racialization of punishment in the United States.

[PT] This course is a study of aspects of the canon of American political thought. While examining the roots of American thought in Puritanism and Quakerism, the primary focus will be on American transcendentalism and its impact on subsequent thought. Among those whose works we are likely to consider are Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Walt Whitman, W.E.B. DuBois, William James, Jane Addams, John Dewey, Martin Luther King, Hannah Arendt, Richard Rorty, and Stanley Cavell.

Not open to first-year students.  Spring semester.  Professor Dumm.

[IL and SC] In this course we will explore the complex relationship between industrialization, the labor movement, race relations, and the organization of violence in America.  Students will learn about major events in American history, from the founding of the United States through the end of World War II.  The topics covered include labor strikes, riots, and ethnic and racial tensions, as well as the related formation of police forces, private security guards, and vigilante groups.  In learning about such conflicts, we will examine the indelible mark that these events left

[PT] Understanding world affairs requires not only identification of and familiarity with central geo-political and geo-economic dynamics, but also an appreciation of the role of political and ethical norms and ideologies in legitimating, undermining and transforming these central dynamics. To better appreciate the political significance of normative arguments in world affairs, we will first explore a few basic discourses and theories concerning state and imperial sovereignty, just and unjust wars, humanitarianism, communitarianism and cosmopolitanism.

[IL, SC] The global energy boom has increased states’ dependency on commodities across the Americas. States are putting entire territories up for sale in an effort to turn nature into "quick cash." In Latin America, governments have expanded the extractive frontier, mining the Peruvian highlands and drilling the Amazon for oil without prior consultation and despite widespread opposition. Far from reversing historical dependencies, governments on the political Left have exacerbated this commodification of nature.