History-Political Science
Advisers: Associate Professors E. GRACE, J. MURPHY; Assistant Professors P. ADLERSTEIN, S. FENNER.
The capacity to reflect upon and to practice politics in a thoughtful and substantive way in the present is ultimately impossible without historical understanding of particular places or issues. Similarly, the practice of historical inquiry is continuously informed by questions and concerns arising from our understanding of the present. Students who major in History-Political Science use the approaches of both political science and history to interrogate the relationship between past and present and to cultivate an understanding of enduring moral, social, and political problems as well as a rich appreciation of the diversity and complexity of human experience. Courses also focus on developing intellectual, analytical, and rhetorical skills. Students will work with advisors in both departments to actively shape and develop their focus as they progress through the joint major.
Major Requirements
*Major was updated Fall 2023
Entrance into the Major
Students may enter the major by taking the appropriate introductory course in either History or Political Science. In Political Science, students must take one of the following: PS200 United States Politics and Government; PS236 Introduction to Comparative Politics; PS209 Introduction to International Relations*; PS290 Introduction to Political Philosophy. In History, First-Year Foundation courses in the History Department or any other 100- or 200-level course may also serve as an entry.
Prospective History-Political Science (HY-PS) majors must consult with one of the HY-PS advisors in order to declare, and majors should anticipate regularly working with faculty in both departments.
*Students entering CC in AY 2024-25 or later (graduating class of 2028 and beyond) must take PS209 (Introduction to International Relations) as their introductory IR course.
Concentration
Students must take five units in each department. The introductory course counts as one of the five units for the department in which it was taken.
- In Political Science, students must take at least three courses in a single subfield (either US Politics, Comparative Politics, International Relations, or Political Philosophy), with at least one of these courses at the 300 level.
- In History, students must take at least three courses within one of the thematic fields outlined on the History Department website, (https://www.coloradocollege.edu/academics/dept/history/courses/thematic-fields.html ) and at least one course at the 300-level and/or HY410.
The History-Political Science advisors may approve credit toward the major for other special or advanced courses when appropriate to a student’s concentration. “Topics” courses in both history and political science are examples. Approval must be sought prior to taking such a course. Subject to approval, one course from a study abroad program may count toward the five units in History, and another toward Political Science.
To declare a History-Political Science major, students must speak with a HY-PS advisor about their particular concentrations within the major (ie, their chosen Political Science subfield and History thematic field). These concentrations should be specified in order to declare the major.
Colloquium
Students must complete HY/PS330 Colloquium in History/Political Science and are encouraged to do so during their junior year. This course may not count as one of the five courses in either department.
Capstone Requirement
At least one unit of advanced research: either HY420 Senior Essay, or the tutorial in the chosen subfield area in political science. Students electing to complete the capstone in the History Department are encouraged to enroll in both HY410 and HY420; in such cases, HY410 would also meet the upper-level course requirement in History.
Thesis
Any History–Political Science major may apply to complete a capstone project that extends beyond the unit of advanced research in History (HY420) or the tutorial in Political Science, subject to approval by advisors in both departments. A student must submit a proposal to both departments outlining the subject and identifying general sources by the beginning of Block 8 of the junior year, or at the beginning of Block 1 of senior year if the student is off campus junior year. The thesis should be interdisciplinary in nature and include the use of primary materials.
Distinction
Students who maintain a 3.7 GPA in the major through Block 7 of senior year may be considered for Distinction in History/Political Science. Thesis students who wish to be considered for distinction must submit completed thesis by the last day of Block 7 of senior year.
Courses
History
An introductory survey of human culture and society through the comparison of Europe and one other major area of the world from ancient to the modern period, focusing on fundamental topics in the development of world civilizations, including material culture, political organization, and aesthetics. The course will emphasize critical moments in historical development, thematic connections, and primary textual and visual sources. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Writing in the Discipline requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Western civilization from ancient to modern times. Cultural, social, and political developments that shaped the modern world. The department offers this course in sections designated Europe or Atlantic World. Atlantic World includes the study of the heritage of Western civilization in the Western hemisphere. (Not offered 2024-25).
This course examines not only the military, economic, and political significance of Africa in the Second World War, but also the harsh realities of oppressive living conditions in “Free France,” the limitations of the Atlantic Charter, and the experiences of black soldiers in German internment camps. Ultimately, this course seeks to reinterpret the Second World War by exploring lived experiences, social movements, cultural expression, and political activism in Africa. (Not offered 2024-25).
As the German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin noted, the march of progress is like a storm that leaves only ruins in its wake – ruined environments, ruined cultures, ruined bodies. Whereas some have sought refuge from these storms of progress in nostalgic attempt to retrieve – and, in some cases, return to – lost times, others have eschewed such romantic pursuits, seeking instead to forge alternative ways of being in the world, some modicum of a right life in the wrong one. After examining the destructive dynamics associated with capitalist modernity, this course will turn its attention to the oppositional milieus and defiant voices that have flourished in modernity’s ruins. Although the course makes occasional forays into global history, the primary focus will be on 19th- and 20th-century Europe. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
East Asian civilization from ancient to modern times. Cultural, social and political developments that shaped East Asian nations and their place in the modern world. Introduces basics of historical method: contextualization, analysis, and critical evaluation of primary sources and their significance. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
An introduction to history through the study of a special subject in depth. Emphasis on the ways in which historians find and interpret the materials of the past. For students who do not complete the West in Time requirement in the History Department, a gateway to the History major. Topics designated according to the specialties of the faculty.
As a burgeoning turn-of-the-century metropolis, the capital of Imperial Germany, an early epicenter of queer culture in the 1920s, the administrative center of the Nazi genocide, a frontline city in the Cold War, a hotbed of leftist activism in the 1960s, and a symbolic capital of post-Cold War Europe, the city of Berlin has played an outsized role in twentieth-century history. Using a wide array of primary documents (ranging from experimental films and mass-market novels to political manifestos and architectural plans), this course explores the history of Berlin from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. In so doing, it both familiarizes students with some of the central events of twentieth-century European history and serves as an example for how to employ the tools of cultural and urban history. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement.
Latin American history from pre-Columbian times to the present. Emphasis on colonial Mexico and Peru, the centers of Spanish power in the New World, and the political and social development of post-independence Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. Introduces historiography and the basics of historical method: contextualization, analysis and critical evaluation of primary sources and their significance. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Aegean and Greek archeological, historical, literary, and philosophical texts, with emphasis on those ideas formative in shaping Western culture. The development and transformations of these ideas as reflected in selected texts from the early Christian era, the Enlightenment or the Modern Age. The rise of individualism and its conflicts with community, ritual relationships to nature vs. separation and exploitation, the relation of theology to the ordering of experience, and how psyche both forms and is formed by its relationships to community, nature, and god(s). Meets the Critical Learning: AIM requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Two block course that introduces the full sweep of American History from its pre-contact, 'New World' beginnings to the recent past. Students will experience how history is made, understood, revised, and debated. Themes include cultural encounters and adaptation complexities of ethnicity and immigration; movement; the success and failures of republican ideology, capitalism, individualism and community; and the formation of American cultures. (Not offered 2024-25).
Examines large-scale social structures and the question of 'ordinary' men and women from the seventh century C.E. to the present. Through a range of historical approaches-cultural, intellectual, political and social-and an emphasis on close reading of primary materials, students explore in what ways the histories of Islamic Civilization, Western Civilization, African Civilization, and Central Asian Civilization were connected histories and how people in the Middle East have critiqued their own societies and those of their contemporaries. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
This course examines art and cultural history in Europe from Antiquity through to the twentieth century. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, one which seeks to bring art history and history in critical dialogue with one another, the students and professors will interrogate the meta-narrative of “progress” across time. In many ways, succeeding periods engaged in conversations with their pasts to make claims of domination through pictorial and cultural production. But it is important, too, to examine counter-narratives made by subaltern groups of the various eras, along the critical axes of gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, race and other markers of identity. Students will be called upon to think systematically about “who” they themselves are in order to engage with the past and explore human similarities, as well as differences, across a long period of time. Thinking systematically about the notion of “critical bias” and the need to analyze the past in its own terms, as well as in ours, will open up avenues to thinking about the present in new ways. We will examine the most important eras of European history, in particular, Ancient Greece and Rome, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the early modern period, and the more recent past. (Not offered 2024-25).
Selected topics in the study of history. Specific content and emphasis to be determined by the instructor.
Emerging in the 1920s as a radical, right-wing fringe group seeking to rejuvenate Germany following its catastrophic defeat in the First World War, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party would go on to become one of the most destructive forces of the Twentieth Century. After first examining the Nazi rise to power in the wake of the Great Depression and the subsequent brutality of its reign, the course will delve into the manifold, and often contradictory, efforts to reconstitute European society after the war. In so doing, it will pay particularly close attention to the multiple 'afterlives' of fascism including the resurgence of neo-Nazi political movements, the subcultural appropriation of fascist imagery, and the multifaceted attempts to memorialize and to “come to terms with” the manifold traumas of the Nazi years. Meets the Critical Learning: AIM requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Born amidst the crucible of the First World War, the Soviet Union sought to realize a progressive, socialist vision, a utopia on earth in which all people would be equal, nature would be conquered, and society would be freed from the destructive dynamics of capitalism. From the outset, however, the implementation of these utopian blueprints was coupled with astonishing acts of violence – the dreamworlds of socialism were constantly shadowed by their opposite. Taking seriously both the utopian and the dystopian aspects of the soviet experiment, this course traces the violent emergence, the piecemeal realization, and the protracted decline of the Soviet Union. Relying heavily on literature, art, and film from the era, the course takes an explicitly cultural historical approach to soviet history. Meets the Critical Learning: AIM requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement.
Broad approach to the history of American traditions and institutions from Anglo-American settlement to the outbreak of the Civil War, addressing Native American-Anglo American encounters; colonization and development of Anglo-American culture and society; African Slave Trade and the Plantation Economy; American Revolution; Jeffersonian Ideology and Westward Expansion; Jacksonian Democracy and the Industrial Revolution; the Politics of Slavery and Secession. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Broad approach to the history of the United States since the Civil War, focusing on multiple meanings of American freedom and the rise of the modern United States as a global power, including attention to Emancipation and Reconstruction; Industrialization, Migration, and Immigration; Civil Rights Movements and Protest Politics; the Great Depression, New Deal and WWII; American Foreign Policy and the Cold War; the Great Society, Vietnam, and the Challenge to the New Deal Order. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: SHB requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPUS requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Detailed study of a period (such as the end of the Roman Republic or Periclean Athens) or a theme (such as slavery or the rise and fall of the middle class) in Greek and/or Roman history.
Introduces students to the history of native peoples primarily in North America. The course includes histories of individual native groups as well as the relationship between American Indians and a variety of Europeans from before contact until the present. Examines a variety of primary and secondary materials to see patterns in the ways that Native Americans have been affected by the process of conquest, the ways in which Anglo-Europeans have responded to Native Americans, and in the ways in which American Indians have become a part of and remained apart from 'mainstream' American culture. As a broader goal, we also look at the way 'history' is made, understood, and used by very different cultural traditions. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
This course explores the ways the state, church, and the people dealt with crime and viewed justice in Renaissance, early modern, and modern Europe. Attention to topics such as heresy, the witch craze, and treason and to what ordinary and great trials reveal about changing attitudes toward criminal justice. (Not offered 2024-25).
A survey of American history from the perspective of the environment, beginning with the biological and cultural invasion of the New World in 1492 and ending with current environmental problems and their historical roots. Topics include Native American vs. Euro-American views of nature, the impact of changing economic systems on the environment, and the impact of the landscape on various American cultures. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement.
Athenian Democracy. The Greeks with Near Eastern and Indo-European background. Panhellenic epic and religion, the polis, philosophy, history, tragedy and comedy. Attention throughout to Greek and Latin literary forms, but no knowledge of ancient languages required. (Not offered 2024-25).
Focus on the development of Rome, from a small city ruled by kings, to a regional power ruled under a Republic. The course will trace Rome's expansion through Italy, its conflict with Carthage and will closely examine the end of the Republic. Individuals discussed will include the Gracchi, generals Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, and Rome's greatest politician (and author) Cicero. (Also listed as Classics 216.) (Not offered 2024-25).
The process of conquering the American continent from 1492 to the present. An examination of the variety of forms that Euro-American conquest took (exploration, religion, economic development, settlement, and military encounter), the impact of conquest on native peoples, the social and economic development of the frontiers, and the lives that people led and lead in places considered frontiers. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPUS requirement.
This two-block course will survey the history of the Eurasian region from Eastern Europe to the Central Asian and Pacific areas of Eurasia, with an important theme being the rise and fall of the Russian Empire, and the rise and fall of the Soviet bloc. The focus throughout will be on the ways in which religious, cultural, and ethnic identities were shaped by, accommodated to, and resisted the construction of national boundaries and identities. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
The Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Soviet successor states in the 20th century. Topics including the collapse of the Empire during the First World War, the attempted ‘building of socialism’ in the Soviet period, the crisis of the Soviet system, and how Soviet conceptions of the relation between ethnicity and nationality shaped political and cultural identities before and after 1991. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Focus on the development of the Roman state in the late first century B.C. under the emperor Augustus. The city, its monuments, its art, its literature, bureaucracy and territorial expansion, the role of women, and various social and minority groups will all be discussed. In particular, the course will emphasize important and influential literary figures, such as Horace, Ovid, Propertius, Virgil and Augustus himself. (Not offered 2024-25).
This course is a survey of African history from approximately 1800 to 1960. We will explore and analyze the final decades of the Atlantic slave trade, the rise of European colonialism in Africa, anti-colonial resistance, nationalism, and decolonization. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures requirement.
This course focuses on major political, social, economic, and cultural transitions in African history from 1960 to the present. We will think through the rise and fall of apartheid in South Africa, the Cold War, environmental crises and activism, the struggle for gender equality and LGBTQIA+ rights, student movements, Arab Spring, the COVID-19 pandemic and other public health issues, and more. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Examines the origins of Chinese civilization, from the divination rituals of the theocratic Bronze Age Shang Dynasty to the mighty Han. Considers the great religious and philosophical traditions of China's axial age: Confucianism, Daoism, and others vying for influence in China's bloody 'Warring States' period. Students will understand the political, economic, cultural and spiritual patterns that gave shape to classical Chinese civilization. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Mass culture, according to its many critics, consists of shallow forms of entertainment that commodify and erase “authentic” modes of cultural expression. Whether members of the avant-garde or the counterculture, whether on the right or on the left, critics of mass culture have ignored its creative, world-making capacities, seeking instead to build authentic, unmediated lives outside of the pop sensibilities of their times. Analyzing a variety of pop cultural artifacts alongside the political, artistic, and academic critiques of mass culture produced by both the left and the right, this course explores mass culture and its multifaceted discontents over the course of the long twentieth century. While focused mainly on twentieth-century Europe, the course will make occasional forays into global history. Meets the Critical Learning: AIM requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
This course will follow the turbulent history and politics of China from the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 through the post-Mao reforms. Using primary documents, personal accounts, and scholarly studies, students will assess China's political and cultural changes and continuities in historical context. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
This course will trace the social, political, and cultural developments in Japan from the first Parliamentary elections in 1890 to the current fiscal crisis in the 1990s. Using a wide range of sources, students will explore major themes in Japan's empire, World War, economic miracle, and troubled role as Asian leader. Major themes will include cross-cultural contact, world systems, and women's history. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Focus on how conservative Roman republican ideals were reconciled with an increasingly Hellenized empire dominated by an imperial dynasty. Following a brief survey of prior Roman history, the course will examine the development of the Roman state in the first century AD under the Julio-Claudian emperors. The course will proceed to consider the Empire’s evolution and management under subsequent Flavian and Antonine dynasties. The city, its monuments, its art, its literature, bureaucracy and territorial expansion, the role of women, various social and minority groups, and the growth of Christianity will all be discussed.
The English colonies in America, their founding and development within the British Empire. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
The movement for independence and the corollary movement to restructure politics internally, from the end of the Seven Years’ War through the Revolution and Confederation to the adoption of the U. S. Constitution. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement.
Initial development of the United States under the Constitution through the Virginia dynasty and Jacksonian democracy. Party formation; conflicts in political economy; diplomacy; expansion; social and cultural growth. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement.
The causes, strategies, and impact of the Civil War on the United Sates. Slavery, sectional controversy, political crises; civilian and military life during the war; the successes and failures of Reconstruction; the problems of race. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPUS requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Cultural expression, and race relations in the aftermath of WWI; changing sexual and racial relations and the anti-modernist response in the 1920s; the Harlem Renaissance; the causes and consequences of the Great Depression and FDR and the New Deal; the coming of WWII. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Domestic politics and political realignments from Truman to Nixon; McCarthyism and the beginnings of the Cold War; covert action and direct intervention in U.S. foreign policy; Civil Rights; Black Power; feminism; and controversies regarding the American family. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
American foreign policy from the 'Vietnam Syndrome' to the end of the Cold War to the invasion of Iraq; Americans and the Islamic world; transformations of the Republican and Democratic Parties and the Office of the President; negotiating race in the post-Civil Rights era; the 'New World Order' and the new immigration; religion, families, and gender and their roles in partisan politics. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: SHB requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPUS requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Political independence in the 1810s in La Plata and Chile. The impact of immigration, urbanization, modernization, populism, nationalism, militarism and redemocratization. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Portuguese colonization, political independence in a neo-colonial economy, the Brazilian Empire, the Republic. The emergence of modern Brazil: populism, corporation and militarism. The institution of slavery and its legacy. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures requirement.
Spanish conquest and administration in New Spain and Peru, the Catholic Church, internal and external colonial economies, the Bourbon reforms and political independence in the 1820s; class, caste and gender during the colonial period. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
The Aztec and other Indian peoples’ influence in Mexican history and thought; Spanish colonial legacy; Enlightenment, Liberal, and Conservative political philosophies; Mexico’s relationship to the United States; roles of the Church and of violence from European encounter through Revolution (1910-1921) and into Mexico’s current precarious social and political situation. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures requirement.
Emphasizes the intellectual precursors and historical development of the federal union of 1787 and of early American foreign policy. Considers America before the Civil War as a system of states and explores through debates over the American union and early foreign policy a range of theoretical issues in international relations. (Not offered 2024-25).
African cultural backgrounds, African slavery in colonial British America and the U. S. to 1860; free Black people from 1790 to 1860 and antislavery movements. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement.
S. since the Civil War. Black Reconstruction; Black urban settlement; literary and artistic movements in the 1920s; civil rights struggles; recent social and political expressions. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement.
The history of mainland and maritime Southeast Asian societies from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, with special attention to Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Burma and the Philippines. How did the social, cultural, and ecological diversity of the region impact the evolution of these societies? What role did Chinese and South Asian diasporas play in this process? How did the colonial experiences of British, French, Spanish and American rule shape their emergence as modern nations? Explores these and other questions via a variety of visual and textual sources including novels, photographs, film, and historical narrative. (Not offered 2024-25).
A thematic survey of Korean history from the earliest times to the present covering social, cultural and political developments from the Three Kingdoms period through the Silla unification, Koryo and Choson dynasties to the modern era. Special emphasis on the twentieth century. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement.
This course treats gender roles and family life throughout the European past, with comparative attention to families of other historical cultures and to relationships within non-human primate communities. It emphasizes the historical agency of women and children generally elided from traditional master narratives of Western Civilization, demonstrating how feminist and ethnohistorical approaches can reveal their experience. Course materials will include historiographical and anthropological literature as well as primary documents, literary works and visual sources. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement.
In examining the privileged role of cities and urban history within Islamicate history, we interrogate what it has meant to speak of an 'Islamic City' and how we can understand cities as spaces that both shape and reflect social relations. To deepen our engagement with sensory and lived experiences in urban spaces over time, this course features a practice of daily mapping and visual notetaking. Students then investigate a historical or contemporary ‘Islamic City’ of their choosing. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement.
This course examines the intertwined histories of what we now call Islam and Science. We’ll consider moments of mutual flourishing as well as contention, with attention to exchange among Muslim and non-Muslim communities and the relation of science to Islamic and European imperialism. Working closely with primary texts, we will interrogate concepts of rationality, the natural world, and how we tell these histories. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures requirement.
This is an introductory level course that explores the historical processes that have formed South Asia. Topics include British colonialism; nationalism and anti-colonialism; social and religious reform movements; independence and Partition; and the economic, political, and social issues facing the postcolonial nation-states of South Asia. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement.
This course explores changes in gender and sexual relations across social communities and through time in South Asia. Key topics covered in this course include the impact of colonialism, nationalism, and socio-religious reform movements; law and the postcolonial state; the cultural politics of sexuality; masculinities; and local and transnational feminisms. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement.
The course examines the interaction between Europeans and the natural world from the Renaissance to the present. It looks at how nature shaped the ways Europeans lived and worked and how, in turn, they thought about and behaved toward nature. In particular, it explores the impact of the Scientific Revolution, industrialization, and mass culture on the changing interplay between nature, society, and culture. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Educational institutions and their relationship to society from the Renaissance to the present. The rise of mass education and its impact on the structure and purpose of the educational system. (Not offered 2024-25).
Development of an Islamic world through formation of key institutions of Islamic urban life, the changing relationships of tribal and agrarian societies to urban society, and the differentiation of public and private space. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: AIM requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Analysis of the variety of lived experiences and questions of freedom and authority in everyday life in the Middle East. Attention to the impact of modernity on gender roles and social order in the Middle East. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement.
The pre-contact history of Anasazi and Athabascan peoples from anthropological and mythological perspectives; the causes and consequences of the Spanish entrada and attempts at missionization of the Indian peoples of New Mexico and the California coast; development of mestizo society; the arrival of the Anglo-Americans and the Mexican-American War. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement.
The adaptation of Native American and Hispanic peoples to Anglo-American culture and politics; the causes and consequences of the loss of Hispanic lands; the evolution of family life and religious practices; indigenous views of modernity. Films, artistic expression, and works of fiction as well as historical sources. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Explores key themes in Southern history from colonial settlement through the American Civil War. Examines the distinctiveness of the American South, and how Southern life was shaped by slavery, particularly in the ways the plantation economy informed Southern political culture, gender and race relations. Other important issues include: Anglo-American encounters with Native Americans, the Great Awakening, the American Revolution, Jeffersonian republicanism, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, and the rise of Southern nationalism. (Not offered 2024-25).
(Not offered 2024-25).
This course provides an overview of the history of human rights. We examine different genealogies of human rights, chart the shifting meanings of “human” and “rights” over time, and explore debates in the application of rights. Key topics include the philosophical foundations of rights; capitalism, imperialism, and rights; universalism vs. cultural relativism; and the complementary discourse of humanitarianism. (Not offered 2024-25).
Exploration of Europeans’ expressions of identity and community from the close of Mediterranean antiquity to the Black Death of the fourteenth century. Consideration of literary texts, social organization, and ritual practices, with emphasis on Christian Europe as continually self-defining against its pagan and Muslim frontiers. Meets the Critical Learning: AIM requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement.
Scientific, religious and artistic achievements of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
The birth of the modern state and the creation of modern society. From the end of the sixteenth-century Reformation and the religious wars through the crisis of the seventeenth century, as well as the making of the constitutional order in England and the absolutist state in France. Political, social, and cultural perspectives. (Not offered 2024-25).
Causes and the social and political effects of the French Revolution, the Revolutions of 1848, and the Industrial Revolution. Particular attention to the process of revolutionary change and to political movements including liberalism, Marxism, and nationalism. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
The course analyzes the origins of 'modernity' in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Beginning with the Scientific Revolution, it then looks at the social and political environment that made the 'Republic of Letters' possible. A wide variety of primary-source texts, including social and political criticism, novels and poetry, painting and sculpture, will be examined. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Changes in European thought from the early modern to the modern periods examined through the works of representative writers, philosophers, political theorists, scientists and artists (including Locke, Galileo, Hegel, Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, Foucault, and others). The relationships between these changes and social developments. (Not offered 2024-25).
The “revolt against reason.” The effects of World War I and the Great Depression on society and politics. Analysis of the appeal of Bolshevism and Fascism. Particular attention to Mussolini and Hitler’s successful challenge to liberal governments and to the Spanish Civil War. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
World War II and Its Aftermath in Europe, 1939-2000. The outbreak, course, and the effects of the War, including the advent of Communism in eastern Europe, European integration, and the 'economic miracle' in western Europe. The emergence of consumer society, the spread of popular culture, and the development of mass education. Attention to the challenges of decolonization and immigration Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Herodotus, sometimes called the 'father of lies,' and Thucydides, sometimes called the first political scientist, treated as the first historians. Study of the ways of conceiving history and its relation to the peoples and periods explored. No Greek or Latin required. Meets the Critical Learning: AIM requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement.
Critical issues in the philosophy of history and historical methodology as seen from the standpoint of the historian and the philosopher. (Offered by individual arrangement.) (Not offered 2024-25).
Selected topics in the history of one or more world regions. Thematic concentration determined by the instructor.
Analysis of sexual roles and sexual practices in the world before the concept of ‘sexual identity’ emerged in the late nineteenth century. Examination of how different religious traditions such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, and Buddhism have viewed sex, and exploration of a wide variety of topics including pornography, prostitution, and same-sex sexual behavior throughout the pre-modern world. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement.
After examination of the birth of ‘sexuality’ in late nineteenth-century Europe, exploration of the acceptance of and resistance to this new conceptual model throughout the world. Attention to heterosexuality and homosexuality, intersexuality, and ‘perversion,’ concluding with analysis of the contemporary cultural wars over sexuality in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Social, intellectual, and spiritual ferment between the Investiture Contest of the 1170s and the death of Francis of Assisi in 1226, with special attention to ideology of expansionism in the eastern Mediterranean and diversity of belief within Latin Christendom. Readings in primary sources for military action in the Middle East, pogroms in the Rhineland, saints’ lives, and persecution of heretical groups, as well as major recent works of historical criticism. (Not offered 2024-25).
Examines the representation of history in film. It compares a series of films to major themes and issues in the historiographical literature and raises questions about the ways films should adhere to the academic standards of the historical discipline. Students will read significant debates among cinematic and academic historians and explore the possibilities and limitations of cinematic presentations of history.
An examination of the relationships, both similarities and differences, of history and literature. Using selected theoretical texts from Aristotle to the present, traditional narrative historical texts, experimental histories, fictions based on imagined thoughts and actions of historical figures, and comparisons of historical/biographical texts and historical novels, the course explores the different and/or similar purposes and functions of historical writing and literary writing, and the truth claims of each as forms of narrative and knowledge. In addition, we will read history literally and literature historically in order to interrogate the uses and limitations of both forms of writing. (Not offered 2024-25).
We live in a haunted landscape, an environment that, to quote Vladimir Nabokov, is filled with objects and places “through which the past shines.” Although some of these vectors of the past – monuments, for example, or even museums – can serve to strengthen structures of domination in the present, this is not always true. Indeed, old houses, city streets, and discarded objects can retain traces of their original contexts; haunted palimpsests of layered time that, according to some theorists at least, can open the way to different futures. Analyzing a diverse array of texts from a range of disciplines this course explores how our visions of the past (and our conceptions of the future) are, to a large extent, mediated by the built environment. As a 300-level course, the class will culminate in a 15-page research paper. (Not offered 2024-25).
A junior seminar organized around comparative analysis of a common theme or topic, employing both historical and political science approaches to analysis and research. Designed principally for History/Political Science majors, but others may be admitted with consent of instructors.
An examination of the effect of total war, extremism, and economic crisis on politics and society, with special attention to fascism, the resistance, post World War II revival, and to cultural movements such as the avant-garde, futurism, and existentialism. (Not offered 2024-25).
This 300-level, co-taught course brings together historical and philosophical methodologies to explore a rotating theme, such as: “African History and Philosophy,” “History and Philosophy of Science,” or “The Philosophy of History.” Although conceived as a cornerstone course for the History-Philosophy Major, all are welcome. Students may take the course more than once, if taught on a different topic. With approval from the student’s advisors, it may be used to satisfy the 300-level History-Philosophy course requirements listed under “Thematic Coursework.”
Social and cultural history of China under the last two imperial dynasties, the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911), with emphasis on print culture and popular literature, examination culture, religious belief and practice, social structure and statecraft. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement.
Analyzes the relationship between law, society and culture in China during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1910) dynasties. Considers the classical foundations of Chinese jurisprudence, then examines late imperial culture using legal codes, case records, popular fiction and contemporary historical scholarship to explore the relationship between state and society in this period, in particular the relationship between social hierarchies and configurations of power. Culminates in a substantial research project based on primary sources. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Formation of the new nation that Hitler said in 1933 the world would not recognize. Germany’s catalysis of European and world transformations, as well as its institution of dictatorship and genocide at home. Political, economic, social/cultural, intellectual, and military aspects of German experience. (Not offered 2024-25).
An examination of traditional and new methods of studying the past and an exploration of the debate over the nature and the meaning of history. Designed primarily for history majors, but others may be admitted with the consent of the department. Meets the Writing in the Discipline requirement.
Students learn how to develop a research topic, advanced library and primary document research, and historical research design and organization. Students meet regularly to discuss their work in progress. Usually, a central text is also discussed throughout the semester. (Semester-long extended format course.) (Not offered 2024-25).
An advanced seminar on selected topics and themes in historical study.
Independent, primary source research. Particular content and emphasis of the paper to be determined in consultation with supervising professor. To be taken in the block immediately following HY 410.
An interdisciplinary, primary source-based thesis on a subject of interest to the student. Independent study format with regular consultation between the student and the faculty supervisors.
An interdisciplinary, primary-source based thesis on a subject of interest to the student and approved by two faculty supervisors, one in Philosophy and one in History. Independent study format with regular consultation between the student and the faculty supervisors.
Directed reading and preparation of a thesis.
(Summer only 2024-25).
Political Science
Questions explored include the balance between state authority and individual liberty; analogies between the exercise of power in government and other areas of human life; the nature of ethical judgment in governance; and the varying ways in which constitutional regimes give expression to and tame the exercise of power. (Formerly 201 Political Analysis.) (Cannot be taken after 103.) (Not offered 2024-25).
This course examines the gripping drama of ancient Roman politics, from the struggle for freedom to the temptations of empire, as it is notoriously described by Machiavelli in “The Prince,” and vividly portrayed in Shakespeare’s Roman plays. (Summer only 2024-25).
The structure and process of United States national politics and government. Special attention to the ideas and values, institutions, and political processes that shape contemporary public policies in this country. 1 unit. Meets the Critical Learning: SHB requirement.
Examines enduring themes of Political Economy with a focus on the balance between individual liberty, state authority, regulation of economic activity and the relation of the polity to economy.
Introduction to the theory and practice of the contemporary state system. Emphasis on the last hundred years of inter-state rivalry.
Analysis of significant and controversial Supreme Court decisions on issues such as racism and the legacy of slavery, school desegregation, affirmative action, gender discrimination, sexual harassment, the right to an abortion, criminal law, freedom of speech, and the separation of church and state. (Not offered 2024-25).
Examines the relationship between women, government, and public policy -- with the primary goal of understanding how politics is gendered. Topics include the 'waves' of feminism, how female lawmakers navigate the electoral and legislative arenas, and the role of gender in public policy. Meets the Equity and Power: EPUS requirement.
Introduction to models and theories of leadership. Analysis of skills, styles and abilities that are frequently associated with effective leadership in political and organizational settings. Analysis of the paradoxes of leadership and the tensions among leadership, democracy, and creativity. (Not offered 2024-25).
Famously condemned by democratic Athens as an impious and immoral corrupter of the young, Socrates has subsequently become a kind of hero of intellectual freedom. Yet Socrates’s radical pursuit of self-knowledge, his claim that 'the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being” has also continuously provoked profound philosophical debates. What does it mean to live an “examined life”? Why is self- knowledge the most important kind of knowledge? Does progress in Socratic self-knowledge help to strengthen – can it even comport with – our heartfelt commitments to moral, religious, and political progress? In this course, we begin to explore Socrates’ enigmatic life and teachings through accounts given of him by Plato and Xenophon, as well as through the many different and thoughtful judgments made of him through the ages - from Aristophanes and Aristotle to Rousseau, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and beyond. .5 or 1 unit. (Not offered 2024-25).
The course investigates the origins and development of theories justifying, and also seeking to limit, resort to war and conduct in war. The readings include ancient and modern formulations of what came to be known as the principles of justifying war, which have also gained recognition in international law. This includes consideration of the changing historical circumstances in which the principles are to be interpreted and applied to the use of force especially in relation to the issues of our time such as nuclear weapons and terrorism. (Not offered 2024-25).
Ideas and Institutions which condition the formulation and execution of the nation's foreign policy. (Not offered 2024-25).
Examines the following questions: Are there politically relevant differences between the sexes, and if so, are they the product of nature and/or convention? What is/ought to be the relation between the political community and private attachments? How has liberalism answered these questions? How does consideration of gender challenge liberal theories such as contract, individual rights, and human nature? Readings in both political theory and in feminist literature. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
An investigation into the strengths and limitations of nonviolent conflict in bringing social and political change. After a week investigating social movement theory drawing from several disciplines, students participate in a workshop in which they envision, organize and strategically guide a virtual nonviolent social movement. Class requires substantial engagement in class and group projects and a final exam.
Student internships in primary and general elections. Post-campaign written analysis required. (Offered as an independent study.)
Directed internships in national, state and local government agencies. Written analysis of the work experience required. (Offered as an independent study.)
Examines ancient politics, from the struggle for freedom to the temptations of empire, insofar as it is vividly portrayed in Shakespeare and the classical literature of Greece and Rome: the greatness, challenges and defects of the ancient republic; the nature of political and military ambition; and the causes and character of empire. Focus/possible works: Shakespeare's Roman plays; the Socratic Xenophon's novel on the rise and rule of Cyrus the Great; Tacitus on Roman emperors. The course may also draw upon Machiavelli on Rome. (Not offered 2024-25).
This course will explore Shakespeare’s dramas as political philosophy. In his plays, Shakespeare often immerses the audience in richly detailed political situations that give rise to profound political and moral dilemmas which human beings continue to confront to this day. The class will pursue the moral and political education that thoughtful and prudent political men and women had for generations found in so many of Shakespeare’s dramas.
This course introduces the concepts, definitions, theories and scholarly approaches used to study comparative politics with reference to selected case studies in different regions of the world. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement.
Investigates the arts’ relation to narratives of power--those stories that justify why certain structures dominate, and why alternatives do not. An examination into those arts that expose these narratives, reveal silenced alternatives, and present challenger stories that aspire to power themselves. Includes two weeks of study in Serbia and Bosnia. Course fee/Passport and Visa, where needed. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement.
Examination of leading conservative and liberal thinkers in America since 1945.
Reading and discussion of classic and contemporary works of fiction and drama known both for their literary merit and for their insight into politics. (Not offered 2024-25).
Drawing on politics, economics, sociology and anthropology, this course critically examines the First World's relations with the Third World through the lens of 'development.' (Not offered 2024-25).
The superiority of liberal democracy to other forms of government rested, in the thought of the early modern philosophers who sought to establish it, upon more fundamental claims about the truth of human equality, the right to individual liberty and, more surprisingly, on the primacy in human life of the need for power. Through careful study of the writings of Hobbes, Rousseau, and Tocqueville, we will explore the philosophical and political questions surrounding these claims, questions such as: What is the philosophical case for human “equality,” and what is its relation to justice? What do we mean by “power,” why do human beings pursue it, and how does that pursuit relate to our concerns for equality and justice? For freedom? Are equality and freedom in harmony, or in tension with one another? 1 unit (Not offered 2024-25).
This course examines the relationship between urban development and environmental justice in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the role of urban planning practices in creating and maintaining the disproportionate exposure to pollution and the unequal access to environmental amenities faced by communities of color. It also investigates the political processes through which municipal sustainability efforts are being used by activists and city officials to create solutions to environmental and social injustices in urban areas. Meets the Equity and Power: EPUS requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Considers contemporary and historical environmental politics in the United States and how politics is translated into policy. Examines federal policies and their effectiveness in protecting the environment and furthering environmental justice and investigates the role of actors including social movements, environmental organizations, industry, and state and local governments in shaping environmental governance. Environmental Studies majors and minors may count this course or EV271 toward the major, but not both. Prerequisites: None. Recommended prerequisites: EV145 or PS200. 1 unit. - McKendry. (Not offered 2024-25).
This course explores how Syria's peaceful 2011 uprising transformed into a bloody international war. Key themes include authoritarianism, mass mobilization, sectarianism, militarization, proxy conflicts, and the power of political ideology. Note: the materials for this course include a significant amount of graphic imagery. Meets the Critical Learning: CP requirement.
Independent Study, readings on special topics for non-majors or students with little or no previous political science coursework.
Investigates the foundation and aims of politic rule as well as fundamental debates over the meaning of justice, liberty, power, authority, law and rights through an examination of basic but competing perspectives drawn from ancient, medieval, and modern texts. Thinkers include, but are not limited to, Aristotle, Aquinas, Machiavelli, and Locke. (Also offered as a CC120 course.)
An examination of the political theory of the American founding and its relevance to contemporary political problems.
A comparative study of the political systems and political cultures of selected European countries with consideration of the history and prospects of European Union.
Examination of modern philosophies of history since Hegel. Taught as an independent study, extended format or Summer Readings course in accordance with student schedules by arrangement with the instructor. Also fulfills a requirement in the Classics-History-Political Science major. COI.
An overview of the interdisciplinary field of political psychology. Questions include: 1)Why do people engage in 'evil' behavior; 2)Why is there intergroup conflict; 3)How does the media alter political attitudes; and 4)Why do people make 'irrational political decisions? To answer these questions we will engage the situationist - dispositionist debate which shapes political behavior more, the situations in which individuals find themselves, or the psychological dispositions of those individuals? Meets the Critical Learning: SHB requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
'Someone once said it is easier to imagine rhe end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.' (Fredric Jameson) This class examines Marx's diagnosis of capitalist political economy and imagines the end of capitalism from a Marxist perspective. We will also engage Marxist, post-Marxist, and neo-communist thinkers, such as Lenin, Gramsci, Althusser, David Harvey, Slavoj, Zizek, Jodi Dean, and others. (Not offered 2024-25).
A comparative examination of the introduction of democracy and markets in Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia, featuring an analysis of how the contemporary package of neo-liberal policies known as 'the Washington consensus' interacts with political institutions. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: AIM requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement.
Rotating, advanced courses in political science, with topic and subfield varying by instructor.
The roots, rise, maturity, and collapse of Soviet Leninism. Addresses implications of the Soviet legacy and contemporary conditions of the post-Soviet political order in Russia and other successor states of the Soviet Union. (Not offered 2024-25).
Examines the development of international thought from the Renaissance to the Scottish, French, and American Enlightenments. How the modern thinkers saw antiquity, and how their thought is relevant to contemporary trends and debates, are key themes. (Not offered 2024-25).
How does the Chinese government see the world? How does China's domestic political concerns shape their actions on the global stage? How does the U.S. government see China? In what ways, do China and the U.S. misunderstand each other? This class examines key policy issues in Chinese foreign policy, and debates over the meaning of contemporary events, as artifacts of different world-views and understandings of power. (Not offered 2024-25).
Focuses on Yugoslavia's disintegration in the 1990's and the subsequent international response. Evaluates theories developed in the fields of international relations and comparative politics that purport to explain events. Places specific focus on the interaction of identity and political institutions. May meet either the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures or Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: SHB requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Traces major themes and developments in MENA politics through the 20th and 21st centuries, with an emphasis on better understanding contemporary events. This course takes seriously the complexity of Middle East politics, engaging with both social scientific theory and lived experience. Topics explored include authoritarianism, state capacity, ethnic and sectarian politics, ideology, and nationalism, approached through case studies, art, fiction, and film. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
The re-emergence of the Middle East as a regional subsystem in the 20th Century. The role of foreign powers, the rise and decline of Arabism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, wars in the Gulf, and the impact of the Islamist movements since 1967. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
This course considers current elections, with a focus on presidential and congressional races. We will pay particular attention to voting behavior, political parties, and elite messaging.
Examines the main characters, events, and ideas of the era of revolution and constitution building. Focuses on the debates over the Federal Constitution and the diplomacy of the early republic. Considers changing views of the Constitution’s significance over time. Also listed as History 240. (Not offered 2024-25).
Examines and evaluates the institution, the politics and policy impact of the American presidency with special emphasis on theories, models and strategies of presidential leadership. (Not offered 2024-25).
This course uncovers the paradox of ideology in the United States: while Americans, on average, prefer to call themselves 'conservatives,' they hold mostly liberal policy preferences on cultural and economic matters. By evaluating ideology at both the macro and micro level, this course considers the myriad of forces that shape ideological identification. 1 unit (Not offered 2024-25).
Structure and operation of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. Emphasis on political organization, the committee system, lobby groups, roll-call analysis, and congressional relations with the executive and the bureaucracy. (Not offered 2024-25).
Forces shaping public policies and decisions; internal politics of the national bureaucracy, the Presidency and Congress. Applies theories of policymaking to such cases as the environment, race and military affairs. Meets the Critical Learning: SHB requirement.
This course examines the function of the courts in the United States as legal and governmental institutions, focusing primarily but not exclusively on the federal judiciary. It begins with the historical development of the trial courts and the adversarial system, and then considers the organization and function of the federal circuit courts and the Supreme Court of the United States. It concludes with an examination of legal reasoning, including the significance of legal sources, the doctrine of precedent, analogical reasoning, and the method and purpose of judicial decision-making. Some of the questions addressed during the course include: Are trials a search for truth? Should courts be concerned primarily with resolving legal disputes or creating legal rules? Are federal judges insulated from political motivations and influences? Is the Supreme Court a legal institution or a political institution?Why do judges follow precedent? What is the relationship between judges and justice? Meets the Critical Learning: AIM requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Examines the role of subnational governments such as states, cities, and provinces in climate change politics, with a particular focus on the role of cities in mitigating and adapting to a changing climate. Investigates how local political actors ranging from business interests to social justice activists shape climate initiatives as well as the relationship between subnational climate policies and higher levels of government. (Not offered 2024-25).
A study of the world involvement of the United States from World War I to the present. Examines themes of rise and decline; isolation and intervention; union and empire; military industrial complex and national security state; domestic influences on foreign policy. (Not offered 2024-25).
This course explores the role of the courts in the experience of racial minorities in the United States. Primarily, but not exclusively, the course examines the courts' impact on African Americans. Where race is concerned, the courts have figured prominently in some of America's proudest and most shameful moments. Slavery, segregation, affirmative action, political representation, and the criminal justice system are some of the topics addressed. The course considers some of the ways in which certain legal, political and policy debates are defined, informed and constrained by the historical arc of racial inequities in American law and politics. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Critical Learning: AIM requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPUS requirement.
This course studies the theory of law. It examines fundamental and recurring subjects of the field, including principally the relationship between law and morality, along with further links between law and justice, power and authority. Some of the questions addressed include: Must valid laws possess some moral value? Are laws the commands of the powerful, or the rules of self-government, or something else? Does law have any legitimate claim to obedience? What is the justification for legal punishment? Students will read the work of canonical and contemporary legal theorists including Austin, Hart, Aquinas, Finnis, Dworkin, MacKinnon, and others. The course also involves applying these theoretical writings to concrete legal disputes and debates, primarily through analysis of constitutional provisions, judicial decisions and legislation.
This course explores the impacts of secrecy and surveillance on the exercise of democracy. How do secrets affect the governed and the state? How does surveillance affect the watcher and the watched? Is informed consent possible in a national security state? Who defines national security? Who benefits from the definition? How are civil rights safeguarded, and how is privacy redefined? How do secrecy and surveillance, in the digital age influence the practice of journalism and the exercise of citizenship?
A seminar organized around comparative analysis of a common theme or topic, employing both historical and political science approaches to analysis and research. Designed principally for History/Political Science majors, but others may be admitted with consent of instructor.
This course provides an introduction into China's domestic politics and the challenges faced by its political system. How does the Communist Party rule? What are its sources of authority and power? How do China's Maoist legacies influence its present governance strategies? How is Chinese society shaped by China's political system, and how is the political system shaped by social changes and pressures? Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
This course explores most of the major legal traditions of the world. It considers the concepts, functions and methods of comparative legal study. In doing so, it examines broad and specific distinctions between the common law and civil law traditions, with special emphasis on two common law systems (the United States and the United Kingdom) and two civil law systems (France and Germany). It then explores the EU legal system as an amalgam of these two traditions. This course addresses the relationship between legal systems and legal cultures, the challenge of understanding the mechanisms through which different legal traditions attempt to achieve the sometimes competing political, legal and social goals of order and justice, and it evaluates the purposes that constitutions and courts perform in maintaining the rule of law. Meets the Critical Learning: AIM requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Students acquire the historical background and analytical tools necessary to understand the European Union. Covers EU history, institutions, and contemporary policies. Meets the Critical Learning: HP requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
This course examines the politics of environmentalism and environmental activism in the United States. It focuses on the development and transformation of environmentalism as a social movement from its roots in the preservationists of the late 19th century, through the emergence of the modern environmental movement in the mid-twentieth century, up to through the challenges environmentalism has faced from across the political spectrum in the past thirty years. It also examines the principal debates that have divided the environmental movement itself, including the debate between conservationism and reservationism, the relationship between wilderness protection and environmental justice, and debates about the efficacy of the movement’s traditional focus on state regulation. Finally, the course investigates the successes and failures of the environmental movement and the challenges and opportunities that mark environmental politics today (Not offered 2024-25).
An overview of theories of political change and a comparative analysis of the politics of Argentina, Brazil and Chile. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement.
This course examines theories of revolution through the lens of the Cuban experience. Special focus on the evolution of the Cuban regime and the evaluation of its performance. Additional topics include the analysis of U.S. policy toward the Castro government. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
How do the spaces in which people live and work shape their identities? How do strategies of agency and resistance interact with contexts of domination? Students will obtain training in ethnographic methods and interviewing techniques. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures requirement.
In the words of George Orwell, 'political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.' This course examines different uses of language in political life. Why is speaking political? How does language frame reality? We will study cases of political language, including: political discourse of the Third Reich in Nazi Germany, Communist-era propaganda in the Soviet Union, the tweets of President Trump, and more. (Not offered 2024-25).
Africa's diverse social and geographic landscape offers rich intellectual opportunities for the student of politics. This course broadly seeks two goals: to teach as much information as possible about Africa's politics and to provide a continent-wide theoretical framework. This course satisfies the comparative politics requirement for the Political Science major (Not offered 2024-25).
The field of International Relations is structured around broad theories that help us explain general outcomes surrounding the distribution of power in the international system. While useful for their intended purposes, these abstract theories are often insufficient for students who are seeking to understand the behaviors of individual states. In order to explain the motivations of particular states as they interact with other actors, we need to turn to more fine-grained analyses of foreign policy. Taking the United States as a case study, this course will explore the factors that influence how a state defines its foreign policy goals and the strategies it employs to execute those goals.
The U.S.-Latin American Relationship: Explores the evolution of the U.S.- Latin American relationship over the last century. Focuses primarily on overt and covert intervention; the genesis and evolution of the drug war; and, the impacts of human migration. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement.
If we claim the mantle of change on behalf of social justice, we would be irresponsible to do so without first asking ourselves: what is justice and why do we care about it? Through careful reflection on what are widely acknowledged to be some of the most radical and thought-provoking philosophical works on the question of justice, we will seek to develop: a rigorous and critical understanding of what we mean by this word; careful reflection on the true character of our aspirations to justice; and a more precise assessment of the degree to which our aspirations can be made effectual, and of what would be necessary to make our hopes for a truly just society come to be.
Investigates competing narratives explaining Russia’s patterns of conflict and cooperation with the West. An in-depth empirical study of the historical record enables students to develop an informed, critical analysis of Russian foreign policy. (Not offered 2024-25).
Surveys contending theories of the contemporary global system, with attention to topics such as globalization, U.S. hegemony, regional conflict, the just war, and the environment. (Not offered 2024-25).
The vast majority of humans throughout history have lived in undemocratic regimes. What is authoritarianism? How do we define and identify authoritarian regimes? How do they work, and under what circumstances do they collapse? Through case studies, fiction, memoir, and theory, this course explores authoritarian politics at both macro and micro levels. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
An interdisciplinary analysis of environmental policy formulation and regulation at the international level. Examines the negative impact of human activity upon complex ecosystems and the 'global commons,' and analyses the efficacy of international regimes, such as the Kyoto Protocol. Debates the linkages between environmental change, prosperity, and conceptualizations of security. Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).
Analyzes the relationship between domains of public health, global governance and international development. Examines how health, effective governance and poverty alleviation combine to create virtuous spirals that accelerate trajectories of international development. Examines the relationship between health and human rights and effect of health on international security. (Not offered 2024-25).
Examination of works fundamental to the development of modern political philosophy, including Kant, Hegel, Marx, Mill and Nietzsche. (Not offered 2024-25).
Reading of major essays in political thought from Nietzsche to the present including such thinkers as Hannah Arendt, Friedrich Hayek, Pierre Manent, Michael Oakeshott, Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin. (Not offered 2024-25).
Examination of classic and modern conceptions of political economy. Emphasis on understanding theory and applying it to explain political and economic outcomes within states and among states in the international arena. Open to declared junior International Political Economy majors, and to others with consent of instructor. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement.
Explores the effects of fossil fuels, nuclear and various renewable energy technologies on carbon emissions. Investigates the political and technological challenges to climate mitigation and adaptation, examines the projected perils that climate change poses to international security, and analyzes shortcomings in global governance that obstruct coherent solutions to climate change. (Not offered 2024-25).
Examines (1) the political and social dynamics and interpretive methods that shape the constitutional decisions of the U. S. Supreme Court, and (2) the political impact of the Court's constitutional decisions and doctrines on political and social conditions. Emphasis given to the shift from judicial concern with governmental structures and powers to the contemporary concern with individual and group rights. 1 unit Meets the Critical Learning: AIM requirement.
This course introduces students to the foundational concepts, questions, and debates in political science research methods. At its core, this course is designed to demonstrate how the choices one makes about research design and methods have significant consequences; the way that we ask research questions (and the choice about which questions to ask), the methodology that we use, and the way that we analyze the data all influence our 'knowledge' about politics and society. (Not offered 2024-25).
The writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Friedrich Nietzsche - as penetrating as they are eloquent, as radical in their philosophical explorations as they are revolutionary in their moral and political implications – continue to have a profound influence on our age. Both Rousseau and Nietzsche leveled scathing critiques at emergent modernity and incisively detailed its powerful but corrupting effects on our lives, while painting competing visions of how to ennoble modern values, politics and culture. Yet they seem to do so as polar opposites; indeed, Nietzsche directs his immense rhetorical firepower at Rousseau as a thinker who fostered values - values central to us now - that would only serve to deepen the problems that concern him. Nietzsche’s condemnation of Rousseau, however, is the obverse of his high regard for the latter as the originator of one of the most profound alternatives to modernity. The course will seek to enter into this great contest through an attentive reading of a number of Rousseau’s and Nietzsche’s fundamental texts. (Not offered 2024-25).
A project normally organized around preparation of a substantial paper. Proposed and carried out at student initiative, under supervision of a department faculty member, in an area in which the student has already completed basic course work. (May also be listed as North American Studies 402 if emphasis is on Canada.)
A directed research project on a topic of the student's choice. The project might involve an extended research paper, empirical research designed to test a hypothesis or describe some phenomena, a theoretical study of a political thinker or institution of government, or some combination of these. 1 unit.
May be taught as a block course or as an extended format year-long course.
A semester long intensive study of advanced texts and topics in political philosophy. The seminar takes one of two forms: Morality of Power. Examines various accounts and defenses of the human interest in the pursuit of power; what constitutes power; and the relations among power, political rule, and justice. Philosophy and Politics in Post-modernity. An introduction to radical changes in philosophic thinking and their potential significance for our understanding of American politics and its principles. This introduction will take place, in part, through a debate with a modern approach to philosophy, politics and morals, including a consideration of its possible connection to Nihilism. (Not offered 2024-25).
Thesis on a subject chosen by the student with approval from the department. Independent-study format with regular consultation between student and faculty supervisor.
Focuses on the historical development and current role of international institutions and multilateral treaties in the regulation of the world economy and environment, with emphasis on the impact of and challenges presented by globalization. Students write a substantial paper exploring some aspect of this interaction, but have considerable freedom in defining their research agenda.
Optional for majors in American Political Economy and International Political Economy, upon application to, and approval of, the departments of Political Science and Economics and Business. (Must be taken in conjunction with Economics 491 for a total of 2 units.)