Winter 2008 Advance Course Information

This information effective for winter 2008. Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.

Politics

[POLI-105A] [POLI-115] [POLI-140B] [POLI-251]

Note: this syllabus is subject to change.

105A Ancient Political Thought

Instructor: Dean Mathiowetz
E-mail: dpmath@ucsc.edu

Course Description

The Greeks, Romans, Jews, and early Christians faced problems that are not unlike those in our time: the tensions between democracy and empire, knowledge and power, citizenship and tradition. Many cultural eruptions from the ancient period still affect us today, while others will seem wholly strange. Examining a few of the myriad textual artifacts of these cultures, we will ask: How did the transition from an oral to a written culture affect Greek ideas about law, justice, and action? What do these effects suggest about the attenuation of written culture in our own time? How did the Greeks conceive of citizenship and justice without rights? What was distinctive about Greek political vocabulary, and why is it so frequently invoked in present-day philosophy and political theory? What was gained and what was lost in the accession of Latin as a language of empire and political philosophy into the Middle Ages? How did Hebraic monotheism contribute to the formation of its identity as a nation? What violence is condemned, and what is glorified, in th e constitution of collective identity? Can reason, dialogue, and revelation coexist as bases for political authority? In this course, we will grapple with some major works in ancient political thought and engage in political theorizing as a systematic intellectual enterprise. While the course is historical, it also encourages a close relationship to the texts in order to explore resources for critically examining present-day politics.

Course Requirements

Course requirements are as follows:

1. Attendance and participation in section, and satisfactory completion of section assignments as determined by the TA. Regular high-quality participation in section comprises 20% your grade and evaluation.
2. A midterm essay (8-10 pages) which comprises 35% of your grade and final evaluation.
3. A final essay (8-10 pages), which comprises 45% of your grade and final evaluation.
4. A comprehensive final exam , which comprises 0+% of your grade and final evaluation.

The goal of the essays is to promote careful reading and scholarly articulation of your views of the readings, and synthesis of the readings with other course activities. I will provide you with a few prompts for each essay. Your essays will be evaluated by your use of textual evidence and argumentation, your originality, and clear exposition. Improvement of these skills from the midterm to the final essay is also an important course objective. The goal of the comprehensive final exam is to gauge the breadth of your engagement with the material. I will explain in lecture the significance of the final exam for your grade.

Attendance at no fewer than eight section meetings, satisfactory completion of the two papers, and completion of the final exam, are necessary (but not necessarily sufficient) conditions for passing the course. Extensions and incompletes are not options. Do not take the course if you foresee any reason whatsoever that you cannot meet a scheduled deadline or sit for the scheduled final exam. Contact your TA immediately – and in advance of any due dates – should urgent, unavoidable, and unforeseen circumstances interfere with your completion of any of the requirements.

Readings

Readings: The readings are the foundation of the course. If you like to read, and to discuss what you read with your comrades, you are more likely to succeed in the class. The material is dense and difficult, and the load is consistently heavy. You must give a great deal of time to read the materials slowly, carefully, actively, and thoughtfully. You must also take time to digest and reflect on the readings prior to attendance in lecture and discussion. If you have taken these steps and are still having difficulty with the reading you should arrange to see your TA or me in office hours.

Required for purchase at Literary Guillotine (please buy only these editions):

Thucydides, either The Peloponnesian War (Modern Library)

or Strassler (ed.), The Landmark Thucydides (Simon & Schuster)*

Plato, Four Texts on Socrates (Cornell)

Plato The Republic (Hackett, trans. C.D.C. Reeve)

Aristotle, Politics ( Chicago – trans. Carnes Lord)

Augustine, The City of God (Doubleday)

* Either of these two editions of Thucydides’ history will work with the course. Both present the common Crawley Translation. The Strassler edition includes notes, maps, pictures, appendices, margins, and other useful study aids. The Modern Library edition lacks these amenities but is a lot cheaper.

Required reading available for purchase from Copy Services or on-line reserve at http://eres.ucsc.edu (password: “politics”):

Sophocles, Antigone

Mendelsohn , “Theatres of War”

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Selections)

Epicurus, “Principle Doctrines”

“The Manual of Epictetus” (Stoic philosopher)

Cicero , On the Commonwealth (Selections)

The Five Books of Moses (Selections)

New Testament (Selections)

Note: If you choose to use ERes to obtain the course readings, be aware you must bring complete copies of the readings with you to lecture and section meetings!

Academic Dishonesty

Plagiarism is presenting another person’s words or ideas as your own, that is, without proper attribution. This includes words or ideas of unknown authorship, such as those that frequently appear on the Internet. I promptly investigate suspicions of plagiarism and do not hesitate to bring charges of academic misconduct against a student when I have evidence or other reason to suspect dishonesty.

Schedule of Lectures and Reading Assignments

30 Lectures

Lecture 1: Ancient Visions of Politics

          Introduction to the Course and its Central Questions

Lecture 2: Setting the Stage for Political Thought

            Sophocles, Antigone (in course reader / on reserve)

Lectures 3 & 4: Greece and the Greeks

Mendelsohn , “Theatres of War” (in course reader / on reserve)

Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (paragraphs)

                   Book I: 1-7, 15-97, 139-46             Book III: 36-49, 70-84

Book II: 10-7, 34-54, 59-65            Book IV: 58-65, 117

Lectures 5 - 7: The Decline of Athens

Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (paragraphs)  

                   Book V: 16, 25-30, 84-116             Book VII: 50-6, 60-87

                   Book VI: 8-31, 43-93           Book VIII: 1-2, 44-54, 88-9

          [Aristophanes, The Clouds (recommended – in Four Texts on Socrates )]

Lectures 8 - 11: The Legacy of Socrates

Plato, Euthyphro , Apology and Crito

Plato, Republic, Books I - III

Lectures 12 - 15: Plato and the Athenian Crisis

          Plato, The Republic , Books IV – IX

Lectures 16 & 17 : ‘The Master Science of the Good’: Aristotelian Ethics

            Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , IV (§6-9); VIII (§7-12); IX (§9-12)

                   (in course reader / on reserve)

***Midterm Essay Due***

Lectures 18 - 20: ‘The Highest Association’: Aristotle Recovers the Polis

Aristotle, The Politics , Book I; Book II, Ch. 1-5; Book III, Ch. 1-13, 15

Lectures 21 & 22: Constitutions, Legislation, and the Best Practicable State

          Aristotle, The Politics , Book V, Ch. 1-2, 5, 8-9; Book VII, Ch. 1-10, 13-16

Lectures 23 & 24: From Polis to Res Publica : The Rise of Rome

Epicurus, “Principle Doctrines” (in course reader / on reserve)

Stoicism: “The Manual of Epictetus” (in course reader / on reserve)

Cicero , On the Commonwealth , Book I; Book II (§1-31, 42-52, 64-70);

Book III; Book VI (§9-29)

Lectures 25 - 26: The Five Books of Moses

          The Bible: Genesis 1-4:16; 6; 9:1-17; 11:1-9; 12:1-3; 15-7; 21:1-7; 22;

Exodus 1-3; 5-6:13; 7; 9:1-12; 11-2; 14-6; 19-20, 32-4;

Deut. 26-8;

Lecture 27: Early Christian Politics and Emire

Matthew 5-7, 10, 16-20; John 1-10:18; 12-13:30 18-21; Acts 1-2, 17; Revelation 20-2 (all in course reader / on reserve)

Lectures 28 - 30: Christian Love and Political Order

          Augustine, City of God , pages 39-41, 45-53, 61-77, 112-8, 146-50, 152-61,

205-21, 295-331, 443-51, 459-68, 476-86, 519-30, 532-45

***Final Paper Due at Final Exam ***

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115 Foundations of Political Economy

Instructor: Dean Mathiowetz
E-mail: dpmath@ucsc.edu

Course Description

Preamble

Once Upon a Time there was no such thing as “the economy.” How then did phenomenon that are commonly cast in present-day discourses as “economic” appear in theoretical discourse prior to the “invention” of “the economy” in the late 1930s? This course is a study of the relation of ideas about property, labor, rights, exchange, capital, consumption, the state, pleasure, production, leisure, poverty, sex and gender difference, luxury, morality, procreation, and markets from 1690-1936. We will focus on how relations among these objects and others are articulated as foundations or manifestations of power prior to some of these topics being imagined as having independent existence as a part of “the economy” (and others being excluded). Lectures and other course activities will focus especially on the theoretical origins of and justifications for property, the contrast between “workmanship” and “industrial” models of purposive human activity, articulations of human differences, and moral economies of distribution and consumption, as means of considering the forms and implications of material and social interdependence for the organization of power relations. Our discussions will be occasions to reflect on which ends are promoted, and which are thwarted, by the imagination and therefore the emergence of “the economy” as a distinct sphere of activity with its own laws that can be known by means of scientific analysis.

Requirements

This is an upper-division elective course. Prior introductory coursework in politics, including one prerequisite core course (105B, 105C, or 120C) or its equivalent (as determined by the instructor) is required. Your final grade is based on a take-home midterm exam (35%), a final paper (9-10 pages in length, 40%), and classroom participation, including satisfactory completion of six in-class short-answer assignments (25%). Attendance at 16 of the 18 course meetings is a necessary, but not necessarily sufficient, condition of passing the class.

Readings

The following books are required and are available for purchase at the Literary Guillotine (204 Locust Street, 457-1195). Please buy only these editions:

       John Locke, Second Treatise of Government (Hackett)

       David Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population (Oxford World’s Classics)

       Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (Oxford World’s Classics)

       Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader (Norton)

       Thorsten Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class   (Dover Thrift)

A course reader is also required and available at Bay Tree in Quarry Plaza. Course readings are also available on e-res (password: politics).

You must bring printed copies of the assigned reading to each class with you, even if you use E-res.

NOTE: This is a text-based course, suitable for people who like to read, and to discuss and debate what they read with others. The readings are the foundation of the course. People who take time to digest and reflect on the readings prior to class attendance should do well in the course. If you have taken these steps and are still having difficulty with the reading you should see me in office hours.

In-Class Writing, Exams & Papers

In-Class Writing : On seven unscheduled occasions throughout the quarter, you will have ten minutes at the beginning of class to compose a short impromptu summary of, and response to or question about, either a main point in the day’s reading or the previous class lecture or discussion. (The subject of this exercise will be determined by me.) This is a closed-notebook and closed-text exercise. Your first priority is an accurate summary; a comment or response may follow therefrom. I will evaluate these responses on a “check plus” / “check” / “check minus” basis. There will be no “make ups” of missed in-class writing exercises, but you are welcome to miss (or skip) one of these assignments with no penalty.

The Midterm Exam : I will distribute several exam essay topics at the end of class on Wednesday February 14. You will have 46 hours and 15 minutes to write two short essays (of 800-1000 words, or 3-4 pages, each) on the two topics of your choosing. Topics will be broad; part of your job will be to focus your answers explicitly, wisely, and meaningfully. Your essay must be type-written and proof-read, demonstrate familiarity with the lectures and discussions, and contain citations of the course materials. You are at liberty to consult your texts, your notes, and your comrades, but you must submit work that is substantially your own. Your midterm essays are due on Friday February 16 at 5:00 pm in Merrill Faculty Services.

Final Paper : You will be responsible for generating original and significant topics for your final paper of 2250-2500 words (9-10 pages). Your paper should incorporate, amend, and build upon one of the topics you explored in your midterm. In any event your paper must also treat at least one of the thinkers from the latter part of the course (Hegel, Marx, Lenin, Veblen, Keynes). If one of your midterm answers was poor, I particularly encourage you to re-work that one in your final paper; improvement of this kind can have a significant effect on your final grade. The synthesis must be greater than the sum of its parts, however: your final paper must re-work and correct the materials in your mid-term, and synthesize them in meaningful ways into your final paper. If the final paper shows little significant improvement or little genuine synthesis of your midterm essay (i.e. if your final paper is a cut-and-paste job), you are liable to a very poor grade. If you have an idea for a final paper that does not extend an answer from your midterm, speak to me in advance. Your final paper is due Monday, March 19 at 5 pm in Merrill Faculty Services.

Part of a university education is developing proficiency in Standard Written English, a specialized dialect that is different from spoken English. This course is an opportunity for you to expand your practice of writing in this dialect. If your education has not yet afforded you exposure to and practice in writing Standard Written English, see me about resources for remedial instruction. I will hold your writing to the high standards of grammar, style, clarity, and content appropriate for an upper-division university course.

The Penal Code

Upon your third absence you will be dropped from the class. It’s not my job to distinguish between excused and unexcused absences after the fact. If you are having difficulty attending class, make arrangements to talk to me before your third absence. In-class short-answer assignments cannot be “made up” after the fact. Do not take the course if you foresee any reason whatsoever that you cannot meet a scheduled deadline. Contact me immediately – and in advance of any due dates – should urgent, unavoidable, and unforeseen circumstances interfere with your completion of any of the requirements. Late exams and papers will not be accepted. Technical difficulties are not a sufficient cause to have your deadline extended. You are required to back up your work regularly on disc or another storage device, and make reliable arrangements to print your work safely ahead of when your exam or paper is due.

Grading Guidelines

I have established the following standards for the evaluating written work in this course:

A: Excellent work, with clear, challenging, original ideas supported by sufficient, appropriate, logically interpreted evidence. The essay should engage the reader in the inquiry, convincingly answer opposing views, be well organized, and free of significant flaws. An ‘A’ paper should be not just good but outstanding in ideas and presentation.

B: Good to very good work, with a clear thesis supported by sufficient, appropriate evidence, organized and interpreted logically. The ‘B’ essay may have some outstanding qualities but be marked by significant flaws which keep it from being an ‘A’; or it may be all-around good work, free of major problems but lacking the deeper insight necessary for excellence.

C: Satisfactory work, but not yet good. The ‘C’ essay meets the basic requirements of a thesis supported by interpretation of specific evidence, but it needs work in thinking and/or presentation. There may be a lack of clarity, the evidence may not always be sufficient and appropriate, or the interpretation may have logical flaws. The essay may have organizational or mechanical problems that keep it from being good. The ‘C’ essay may be good in some respects but poor in others, or it may simply be adequate but not noteworthy overall.

D: Barely passing work that shows effort but is so marred by serious problems that it cannot be considered a satisfactory essay.

F: Failing work—for example, a hasty, sloppy essay that shows little or no thought, effort, or familiarity with the text. Essays that fall short of the minimum page requirement or which do not adhere to academic standards of citation of sources are also liable to the   grade of ‘F’.

Contested Grades: If you disagree with a grade on your exam you must submit a written account of the reasons why you believe the grade to be inaccurate (perhaps with reference to the grading guidelines) to me within two class meetings of the first day exams are returned to students. I require a written account to encourage you to think critically about the strengths and weaknesses of your work. The copy of your exam that you submit to me must be the one I originally graded, with my comments in ink. Keep a photocopy of your exam for your own records until the original is returned to you. Please note that re-reading an exam for the purposes of reconsidering the grade implies your acceptance that the grade could also drop based on further evaluation. If you disagree with my evaluation of your in-class writing exercises, see me in office hours.

Office Hours: I will be available in my office for consultation and discussion of the activities related to our course or your other academic concerns on Fridays from 1:45 – 3:15 pm. My office, 158 Merrill, is located in the Faculty Annex Building just south of (or: downhill from), the main academic building. My regularly scheduled office hours are your time, not mine, so feel free to speak with me—that’s why I’m here. If you have immediate concerns or questions that can be briefly addressed, please speak to me after class.

Schedule of Readings, Assignments and Classes

January 8: Introduction to the course: the Neoliberal Moment, Foundations, and Alternatives

Locke, Second Treatise of Government , ch. 1-9, 18-19

Locke, Second Treatise of Government (continued) 

*Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality , pp 3-21, 26-57

Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book IV: chs. 1, 2, 7-; Book V: chs. 1, 2

Smith, Wealth of Nations , Book I: chs. 1-9

*Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments , Part VI, sections i, ii

Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, pp. 9-22, 28-45, 51-61, 88-91, 103-108

*Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy, chs. 1, 2, 5, 25, 28

*Mill, Principles of Political Economy, “On Property,” “The Stationary State,” and “Probable Future of the Laboring Classes”

Midterm exam distributed at the end of class on February 14

February 16: Midterm Exam Due in Merrill Faculty Services at 5 p.m.

*Hegel, Philosophy of Right, “Translator’s Forward” § 4-5; Text pars. 41-81, 182-214, 230-71 (including ‘Additions’)

Marx, Selections from The German Ideology, Wage Labor and Capital, and Capital, Vol. 1, pp. 147-63; 172-5; 184-94; 207-10; 302-17; 319-45; 349-61

*Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, pp. 229-33; 236; 239-44; 257-60; 270-74

March 14: Consumption & Depression

Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, chs. I – V, VII, XIII

*Keynes, “The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money” (Excerpts)

March 19: Final Paper Due in Merrill Faculty Services at 5 p.m.

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140B Comparative PostCommunist Politics

Note: This syllabus is from winter 2007.

Instructor: Michael Urban
Office: 233 Crown, M/F 3:15-4:15
Phone : 9-3153 (office)
E-mail: urban47@ucsc.edu

Course Description

Analytically, the content of this course concerns communism and its aftermath. Substantially, the focus falls primarily on East European states, although excurses on political developments in are also necessary to our enterprise’s role in the region represents one important instance of a theme running through the entire course; namely, that East European politics has been and remains in many ways determined by forces outside the region itself. We explore this question as it relates to the hegemony exercised by West European states in both the pre- and post-communist periods, as well as the USSR ’s dominion over them in communist times. With respect to the latter, our objective is to build an understanding of the communist past, what is, here, taken to be a unique socio ‑political formation known as "state socialism". This objective can be broken down further into a number of sub‑topics that comprise the first part of the course: Marxist revolutionary theory, Leninist revolutionary practice, Stalinist state construction and the maturation and decay of state socialist systems. The problem of the political role of intellectuals within the specific historical contexts peculiar to East Europe and Russia is singled out for special attention in this regard.

The second part of the course focuses on reforms within, and revolts against, the state socialist order that have occurred in East Europe and the former Soviet Union. On the basis of the analysis presented in the first part, it locates a number of crisis tendencies specific to state socialist systems that have led to movements for reform and revolution and examines how new directions taken in one place and time often have reverberated later in the politics of other states within the region. Moreover, the specific incidences of mass resistance to state socialism modified it in one place or another, lending different characters to state socialist regimes that would determine the particular paths of transition that they would follow.

Part three concerns the collapse of communism in East Europe and the former USSR. The significance of that moment has only begun to be measured in historical terms, yet its implications are already staggering enough: the unhinging of the capitalist/communist dichotomy that had dominated politics, nationally and globally, for the second half of the twentieth century, thus throwing into question established identities, arrangements and alliances. The collapse of one system and the formation of another allows us to glimpse the political magma, usually obscured, assumed or unremarked in the study (and practice) of "normal" politics. Therefore, we devote particular attention in this section to social, cultural and economic issues, exploring the ways in which they have shaped the politics of post­communist transitions.

The final section examines a set of major political issues confronting the post‑communist states of Eastern Europe, a list that includes: an incongruity between the formal structures of government and politics, on one hand, and the form and character of social relations on the other; the introduction of disciplinary practices associated with capitalism and their reception and/or modification; and the appearance of new forms of sociability and the fashioning of new selves. Finally, how does the hegemony of states outside the region express itself in the present period?

Course Requirements

In addition to meeting standard expectations—attending lectures, completing all reading assignments prior to the respective class and discussion sessions at which they are to be considered, sitting for two examinations (a mid‑term and a final)—each student is required to write an extended term paper (10‑12 pages in length) on a topic selected by the student and approved by the instructor. This paper will observe all of the usual rules governing such an enterprise: coherent organization, proper referencing, adequate bibliography (on average, 5 books and/or an equivalent number of journal articles not included in course readings). It is due on March 9.

Readings

The required readings for this course include 4 books (see, below) and a number of shorter selections and journal articles, all of which are available at the Reserve Desk in McHenry Library or on electronic reserve (password: COMPCOMM). Those readings marked, below, with an asterisk are recommended; the others are required.

Texts

Required:

• Padraic Kenney, A Carnival of Revolution , ( Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).
• Joseph Rothschild, Return to Diversity , (3rd ed.; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
• Grzegorz Ekiert, The State Against Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).
• Elizabeth Dunn, Privatizing Poland : Baby Food, Big Business and the Remaking of Labor ( Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004).

Recommended:

• Andrew Janos , East Central Europe in the Modern World (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).

Topics and Readings

(All readings are required, unless marked with an asterisk—in which case they are recommended.)

Part I What Is a Communist System?

1. Communism as a Project.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party .

Vladimir Lenin, What Is to Be Done? (selections).

Alvin Gouldner, Against Fragmentation , pp. 12‑27.

2. Pre‑Communist East Europe.

Zygmunt Bauman, "Intellectuals in East‑Central Europe", East European Politics andSocieties , Vol. 1 (1987), pp. 162‑186.

Rothschild, pp. 3 ‑75.

*John Feffer, Shock Waves (Boston: South End Press, 1992), pp. 1‑31.

*Janos, pp. 1-217.

3. Communism as a System.

Ken Jowitt, New World Disorder , part 1.

Rothschild, pp. 76‑123.

Feffer,”The Soviet Model”, pp. 33‑47.

*Janos, pp. 218-256.

Part II Transformation and Stasis in Communist Systems.

1. Reform and Rebellion.

Ekiert, pp. ix‑xvi, 3‑120.

Jowitt, part 2.

Vaclav Havel, "The Power of the Powerless", part 1, pp. 23‑41.

Rothschild, pp. 125‑190.

*Janos, pp. 257-328.

2. Opposition Within and Without.

Ekiert, pp. 121‑213.

Havel, part 2, pp. 41‑78.

Rothschild, pp. 191‑226.

Kenney, p. 1-120.

3. Late Communism and the Question of "Civil Society".

Ekiert, pp. 215‑304.

Kenney, pp.121-289.

Havel , part 3, pp. 78 ‑96.

Jadwiga Staniszkis, "Forms of Reasoning as Ideology", Telos , No. 66 (Winter, 1985‑86), pp.67‑80.

Part III Post‑Communist Transitions.

1. Overview.

Kenney, pp. 293-306.

Rothschild, pp.227-263.

Ekiert, pp. 305‑330.

Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital”, J.G. Richardson (ed.), The Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (New York: Greenwood, 1986), pp. 241-258.

2. Economic and Social Change.

Rothschild, pp.265-302.

Gil Eyal, Ivan Szelenyi and Eleanor Townsley, Making Capitalism Without Capitalists (London: Verso, 1998), pp. 86-112.

Camilla Jensen, “Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Transition: Panacea or Pain Killer?”, Europe-Asia Studies , Vol. 58 (Sept., 2006), pp. 881-902

Part IV Political Dimensions.

New Forms of Power in the “New Europe”

Elizabeth Dunn, Privatizing Poland (all)

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251 Discourse

Note: This syllabus is from spring 2006.

Instructor: Michael Urban
Office: 233 Crown, M/F 3:15-4:15
Phone: 9-3153 (office)
E-mail: urban47@ucsc.edu

Course Description

“Discourse” has made substantial inroads in the social sciences over the past three decades, radically altering conventional social ontology for those employing the concept in any of its various formulations.  Each of the forms of analysis inspired by this concept represents a paradigmatic shift away from positivist facticity and toward explorations of linguistically externalized subjectivity and the internalization of the structuration that discourse supplies.  In both respects, discourse appears as a critical concept, challenging everyday notions about subjectivity, objectivity and communication that are still widespread in the social sciences—especially, it might be said, in political science.  Moreover, discourse analysis is critical in another respect: it refuses to recognize social communication as a process from which power is absent.  Indeed, the thrust of work done in this area has been to focus on the ways in which power is encoded in communication.  Rather than something standing outside of those subject to it, power is apprehended as integral to those dominated by it, coursing through the language centers of their brains, flowing out of their very mouths.

In perhaps the briefest encapsulation, a discursive approach to the socio-political world eschews the study of information—the core of positivist social science—in order to study meaning. The field is enriched by the variety of academic disciplines engaged in this enterprise: linguistics, philosophy of language, semiotics, literary criticism, sociology, anthropology and (at last) politics.  In this respect it presupposes that very interdisciplinarity that has been so much discussed, but so little practiced, in social sciences over the past 40 years.  And for this reason it is a demanding enterprise; its practitioners must educate themselves about theories and methods considerably beyond the confines of their respective disciplines and, in most cases, outside of their own professional training.  Thus, discourse analysis is not an easy skill to acquire.  But its acquisition is likely to alter profoundly one’s take on the political. 

The overall objectives of this seminar are to familiarize the student with the field of discourse analysis and to cultivate his or her abilities to apply discourse analytic technique to actual texts.  To those ends, each student will participate in leading the seminar on one occasion, will submit a couple of short exercises on text analysis and will write a paper that will be presented in seminar late in the quarter.  The content of this paper can include: (1) the analysis of a given text relying on methods and techniques acquired from course readings; or (2) a critical exegesis on some concept, scholar or school of discourse analysis.  (Suggestions for a third way are most welcome.)  Each student will also serve as a discussant, commenting on another student’s paper.  Consequently, some days prior to presentation in the seminar, each student must deliver a copy of his/her paper to both the instructor and the discussant.

Topics and Readings

• Roland Barthes, Mythologies (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972)
• Murray Edelman, Constructing the Political Spectacle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988
• Nelson Phillips and Cynthia Hardy, Discourse Analysis: Investigating Processes of Social Construction (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2002)

• Michel Foucault, The Archeology of Knowledge (New York: Harper and Row, 1972)
  Jurgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis (Boston: Beacon, 1975), part 2
  
• The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. 2: Lifeworld and System (Boston: Beacon, 1987), pp. 43-63, 77-152, 332-373 (ERes title: “The Authority of the Sacred”)
  
• Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power (Oxford: Polity, 1991), esp. pp. 37-89.

Narrative Structure

• A.J. Greimas, Structural Semantics (Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), pp. 197-215
  
• Frederic Jameson, The Prison-House of Language (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), pp. 122-129, 163-169 (ERes title: “The Structuralist Projection”)
  
• The Political Unconscious (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981), pp. 46-49, 120-126
  
• Michael Urban, “The Structure of Signification in the General Secretary’s Address: A Semiotic Approach to Soviet Political Discourse”, Coexistence, Vol. 24 (1987), pp. 187-210
  
• “Political Language and Political Change in the USSR: Notes on the Gorbachev Leadership”, P. Potichnyj (ed.), The Soviet Union: Party and Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1988), pp. 87-106
  
• “Stages of Political Identity Formation in Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia”, V. Bonnell (ed.), Identities in Transition: Eastern Europe and Russia After the Collapse of Communism (Berkeley: International and Area Studies, University of California, 1996), pp. 140-154.
  

Discourse Theory

• Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (2nd ed.; London: Verso, 2001), pp. vii-xix, 1-7, 65-75, 93-148  (ERes title: “Beyond the Positivity of the Social”)
  
• Ernesto Laclau, Emancipation(s) (London: Verso, 1996), pp. 36-46 (ERes   title: “Why Do Empty Signifiers Matter…?”)
  
• Stuart Hall, The Hard Road to Renewal (London: Verso, 1988), pp.134-173
  
• David Howarth et al. (eds.), Discourse Theory and Political Analysis (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), esp., chapters 1,2,5,9 and 10 

Critical Discourse Analysis

• Norman Fairclough, Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language (London: Longman, 1995)
  
• Lilie Chouliaraki and Norman Fairclough, Discourse in Late Modernity: Rethinking Critical Discourse Analysis (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999)
  
• Gilbert Weiss and Ruth Wodak, “Introduction: Theory, Interdisciplinarity and Critical Discourse Analysis” in their Critical Discourse Analysis: Theory and Interdisciplinarity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 1-32
  
• Eve Chiapello and Norman Fairclough, “Understanding the New Management Ideology: A Transdisciplinary Contribution from Critical Discourse Analysis and New Sociology of Capitalism”, Discourse and Society, Vol. 13, no. 2 (2002), pp. 185-207
  
• Paul Chilton and Christina Schaffner, “Discourse and Politics,” T. van Dijk (ed.), Discourse as Social Interaction (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1997), pp. 206-230
  
• Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress, Language as Ideology (2nd ed.; London: Routledge, 1993), esp. pp. 1-37, 153-212

Iurii Lotman: Cultural Studies

• Ju. M. Lotman and B.A. Uspenskij, The Semiotics of Russian Culture (Ann   Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1984), esp. pp. 3-35
  
• Yurii M. Lotman , Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture(London: I. B. Tauris, 1990)
  
• Michael Urban, “The Politics of Identity in Russia’s Postcommunist Transition: The Nation against Itself”, Slavic Review, Vol. 53 (fall, 1994), pp. 733-765
  
• “Post-Soviet Political Discourse and the Creation of Political Communities”, A. Schonle and Amy Malkinger (eds.), Lotman and Cultural Studies: Encounters and Extensions (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, forthcoming)

Outside Language

• Roland Barthes, Image-Music-Text (new York: Hill and Wang, 1977), pp. 15-68, 179-189 (ERes  titles: “Photographic Message” and “The Grain of the Voice”)
  
• Simon Frith, Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996)
  
• Susan McClary, Conventional Wisdom: The Content of Musical Form (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000) 

Beyond Discourse?

• Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994)
  
• The Illusion of the End (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994)

Presentation of seminar papers

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