This is a reading and writing intensive course.  The texts have been selected to present a variety of “approaches” to political or social problems, the style and manner of the works are quite distinct. Though the following “different” themes will certainly be focused on in this class – the tensions between rights concerns and the constitution of the nation-state, the political procedures or powers that are entailed by conceptions of equality and liberty, individual development and fulfillment in relation to social norms, the conception of a political community, moral and political relativism, the efficacy of class and crisis perspectives, consideration of the range of analysis labeled “postmodern”. Basic themes, concepts, and problems will be developed and “carried over” through our readings of the texts.

The goal of this course is to impart a historically informed perspective which can: 1) provide a more advanced foundation for study in political theory; 2) help develop varying perspectives from which the current culture or society can be analyzed and critiqued; and 3) give one the opportunity to consider the efficacy and place for differing forms of political action.

1) Kant – Perpetual Peace and Other Essays (0915145472)

2) Mill – On Liberty (0915144441)

3) Nietzsche – Genealogy of Morals (0679724621)

4) Karl Marx, Selected Writings (0872202186)

5) Trotsky, The Transitional Program (will provide in class)

6) From Modernism to Post-Modernism (0631232133)