In this
introduction to
political theory, we try to get a handle on four contributors to Western
political thought. The class pays
special attention to various ideas about the demands of citizenship comparing
the theorists’ attention to a variety of questions, such as: What are the
obligations of citizenship? How are
citizens produced? And what is the
value of democracy?
Actual
texts vary by semester, though recent selections have come from Plato, Thomas
Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, John
Dewey, and Michel Foucault.
Assignments
include pop quizzes and one exam on each of the selected thinkers.