Spring 2005 Advance Course Information

This information effective for Spring 2005. Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.

Legal Studies

[LGST-105C]

105C. Modern Political Thought

Please note: This is syllabus for Winter 2004. Requirements, readings, and schedule are subject to change for Spring 2005.

Note: Also offered as Politics 105C.

Instructor: Megan Thomas

Course Description

This course surveys 19th- and 20th-century political theory, emphasizing continental European thought. In the first unit of the course, we will read texts that investigate the themes of human consciousness, labor, and alienation. The second unit of the course groups works that address issues of freedom and morality, and the third and final unit is on capitalism and culture. By keeping these themes in mind, we will compare and draw together texts that in many ways have quite divergent methods, styles, and concerns; at the same time, as we try to make connections between works, we will still also try to pay attention to their differences and to the particular concerns that each theorist raises. Authors covered include Benjamin, Fanon, Foucault, Hegel, Horkheimer and Adorno, Marx and Engels, Mill, Nietzsche, Perkins Gilman, Taylor Mill, and Weber.

Course Requirements and Grading:

Final grades for the course will be determined as follows:

Attendance and Participation:
Students are expected to attend all lectures and sections well prepared and participate in class discussion as appropriate. There will be nine section meetings over the course of the quarter, and you must attend at least seven of those to pass the course. You are responsible for any changes in the readings, schedule, etc., that may be announced in class; if you need to miss a class, find out from one of your classmates what you missed.

Papers:
There are three papers required for this class. All papers will be collected in class, at the beginning of class; once lecture begins, they will be considered late. Papers will be marked down for lateness at the rate of 1/3 of a letter grade a day: 1/3 of a grade for up to 24 hours late, 2/3 of a grade for 24-48 hours late, 1 full grade for 48-72 hours late, etc.

Re-Write Option:
Students may choose to submit a re-written version of one of their first two papers for a new grade (in which case the final grade for that paper will be an average of the original grade and the grade of the re-written paper). TAs will only grade re-written papers if the following conditions are met: 1) the original paper must have been submitted on time. 2) You must meet with your TA about your paper re-write before submitting it (it is up to you to leave enough time to schedule this before the re-write is due), and 3) You must submit, along with the re-written version of the paper, the original paper with your TA's comments and original grade. 4) The re-written paper must be a substantive revision of the original paper (when you meet with your TA, make sure that you understand what this means).

Required Reading:

You will be asked to bring with you to lectures and sections the relevant texts for those meetings; it will be easiest for you if you buy all of the required books and the reader. You might be able to locate these books used, or in different editions. I recommend that you use these editions as it will make locating passages in lecture and sections easier; if you use another edition, you are responsible for making sure that it includes in full the sections that we will read for class; and it will be up to you to keep track of the differences in page numbering, translation, etc. All of these texts, and those from which the selections in the reader have been taken, will also be on reserve (not e-reserve) at McHenry Library.

Books (available at The Literary Guillotine, 204 Locust St [M-F 10am-6pm] and on reserve at McHenry Library):

• Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin White Masks. Translated by Charles Lam Markmann. New York: Grove Press, 1967. Reprint, October 1991. ISBN: 0802150845 (~$13 new)
• Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage, 1979. Reprint, May 1995. ISBN: 0679752552 (~$14 new)
• Hegel, G. W. F. Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by A. V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. ISBN: 0198245971 (~$19 new)
• Marx, Karl, Friedrich Engels, and Robert C. Tucker, eds. The Marx-Engels Reader. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1978. ISBN: 039309040x (~$26 new)
• Mill, John Stuart. The Basic Writings of John Stuart Mill. New York: Modern Library, 2002. ISBN: 0375759182 (~$10 new)
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo. Translated by Walter Kaufman. New York: Vintage, 1967. Reprint, November 1989. ISBN: 0679724621 (~$13 new)
• Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Talcott Parsons. New York: Routledge, 1992. Reprint, May 2001. ISBN: 041525406X (~$14 new)

Reader Contents (Reader is available at Slug Books [469-7584]; these books are on reserve at McHenry Library Reserves):

• Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." In Illuminations: Essays and Reflections by Walter Benjamin, edited by Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken, 1968. pp. 217-51.
• Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. "Enlightenment as Mass Deception." In Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002. pp. 94-136.
• Perkins Gilman, Charlotte. Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation between Men and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution. 9th ed. New York: Gordon Press, 1975. Chapters I and XI, pp. 1-22 and 225-247.
• Taylor Mill, Harriet. "Enfranchisement of Women." In Essays on Sex Equality, by John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill, edited by Alice S. Rossi. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. pp. 91-121.

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