Fall 2020  |  POL 3252W Section 001: Revolution, Democracy, and Empire: Modern Political Thought (17641)

Instructor(s)
Class Component:
Lecture
Credits:
3 Credits
Grading Basis:
Student Option
Instructor Consent:
No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:
Completely Online
Class Attributes:
UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
Online Course
Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
 
09/08/2020 - 12/16/2020
Wed, Fri 09:45AM - 11:00AM
Off Campus
UMN REMOTE
Enrollment Status:
Closed (55 of 55 seats filled)
Also Offered:
Course Catalog Description:
From the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, Europe and its colonies were wracked by large scale, sweeping changes: from the violent emergence of the sovereign state, to intense religious conflict, to geographic expansions at once transformative and brutal in search of new economic markets. These changes posed extraordinary challenges to usual ways of conceiving of political order and governance. Our course this semester will read these changes through three key concepts - revolution, democracy, and empire. Class discussion will seek to understand different meanings of these concepts, their political stakes, and ways of knowing how to move between political ideals and historical examples. Students will read a range of materials - from primary historical sources, to philosophic texts, political pamphlets and treatises, and travel journals - so as to study the effects on both the European context and beyond. prereq: Suggested prerequisite 1201
Class Notes:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?asinha+POL3252W+Fall2020 This course is completely online in a synchronous format. The course will meet online at the scheduled times.
Class Description:
Early Modern Political Thought - Professor Yves Winter This course introduces students to early modern European political philosophy and political thought from the Renaissance to the 18th century. Early modern political philosophy develops in some of the most turbulent and contentious epochs of European history, in a period shaped by religious warfare, by the demise of the Catholic Church's monopoly on truth and interpretation, by the emergence of the modern state and the capitalist mode of production, by the rise and fall of absolutism, and by the exploration and colonization of the Americas. In this course, we will discuss the crisis of political authority and the disinteration of medieval understandings of solidarity and community. We will study how political theorists and philosophers in Europe responded to this crisis, what proposals they developed to reconstitute political order and to address the fragmentation and factionalization of political and religious communities. The trajectory of this course will take us from the renewed interest in interpretation and reading generated by the Renaissance to the revolutionary demands for popular participation in the 18th century. We will examine the relations between practices of interpretation, claims of political authority, and the problem of sovereignty. Among the authors we will read in this course are Niccolo Machiavelli, Martin Luther, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Grading:
20% Final Exam
60% Reports/Papers
10% Class Participation
10% Other Evaluation Other Grading Information: Late papers will be docked one third of a letter grade for every day late, including weekends. Please note that students who do not complete all assignments or otherwise fail to meet these requirements will not receive a passing grade.
Exam Format:
Take-home final examination.
Class Format:
50% Lecture
50% Discussion
Workload:
50-100 Pages Reading Per Week
15-18 Pages Writing Per Term
1 Exam(s)
3 Paper(s)
Other Workload: Online discussion: Students are required to post at least TWO questions and at least TWO responses to the online discussion forum throughout the semester.
Textbooks:
https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/17641/1209
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
4 April 2013

ClassInfo Links - Fall 2020 Political Science Classes

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