University of Connecticut, Storrs Spring POLS2998: Contemporary Political Theory Course Syllabus. I. Overview

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1 Political Science Professor Fred Lee University of Connecticut, Storrs Spring 2014 POLS2998: Contemporary Political Theory Course Syllabus Class Times: TuTh 3:30-4:45PM, 104 Oak Office Hours: TuTh 1:55-3:20 PM and by appointment, 436 Oak I. Overview Our aim in this course is to closely read and critically evaluate four contemporary political theorists: W.E.B. DuBois, Antonio Gramsci, Michael Walzer, and Iris Marion Young. Contemporary (20 th -21 st c.) political theory is a term used in academic discussions of political theorists who wrote after the modern (16 th -19 th c.) period. It both maintained and broke with intellectual tendencies in the Western tradition, broadly construed. Part one of this course concerns two early 20 th c. political thinkers, W.E.B. DuBois and Antonio Gramsci, who posed questions of race, nation, and class in the late 19 th c. languages of liberalism and socialism. Part two turns towards two late 20 th c. political thinkers, Michael Walzer and Iris Marion Young, who returned to the traditional question of justice in ways indelibly shaped by the historical and sociological imagination of early 20 th c. thinkers. II. Objectives The primary objective of this course is to develop interpretations of DuBois, Gramsci, Walzer, and Young. Our interpretations will recognize the specific contributions of our contemporary political theorists to the Western intellectual tradition (say, DuBois concept of double consciousness or Walzer s notion of complex equality). These will also address questions of what our thinkers have inherited from the Western intellectual tradition (say, Gramsci s debt to marxism or Young s reliance on post-modernism). The secondary objective is to assess the limits of each theorist s perspectives with respect to their historical contexts and assess the persuasiveness of their arguments with regards to our own. In judging our theorists present-day significance, we will compare their thought to related political ideologies (we could compare Gramsci with thinkers from 21 st c. social movements, for ex.) and apply their insight to political predicaments of our times (we might attempt a Youngian analysis of the identity politics of the U.S. labor market, for ex.). 1

2 III. Schedule Part I. Identification as a question of development 1. The veil in the question of double consciousness January 21. DuBois Forethought, Ch. 1-2 January 23. DuBois Ch Historical legacies, historical futures January 28. DuBois Ch. 6-7 January 30. DuBois Ch Experiences in black life-worlds February 4. DuBois Ch February 6. DuBois Ch , Afterthought 4. Commonsense in the question of consciousness February 11. Gramsci The Intellectuals February 13. Gramsci On Education 5. States of war, societies of war February 18. Gramsci State and Civil Society (pgs ) February 20. Gramsci State and Civil Society (pgs ) 6. Modes of cultural (re)production February 25. Gramsci Americanism and Fordism February 27. Review of part I of course [no assigned reading] Part II. Justice as a normative question 7. Justice as a question of distribution March 4. Walzer Preface, Ch. 1 March 6. Walzer Ch. 2 March 7 at 3:30 pm. 5-7 double-spaced page midterm essay due online 8. Needs and wants March 11. Walzer Ch. 3 March 13. Walzer Ch. 4 March Spring break no class. 9. Personhood devalued and recognized March 25. Walzer Ch. 6 March 27. Walzer Ch. 11 2

3 10. Ordering the spheres of societies April 1. Walzer Ch. 12 April 3. Walzer Ch Justice as a question of (non)domination April 8. Young Introduction, Ch. 1 April 10. Young Ch Politicizing distribution and merit April 15. Young Ch. 3 April 17. Young Ch Social bodies, boundaries, and movements April 22. Young Ch. 5 April 24. Young Ch Empowering places of difference April 29. Young Ch. 8, Epilogue May 1. Review of parts I and II of course [no assigned reading] May _. Cumulative final examination IV. Requirements This course is organized around the activities of reading, speaking, and writing about contemporary political theory. Final grades will be determined in terms of 1. 15% discussion. At least 30 minutes of each class will be reserved for an open-ended discussion, which will allow for a collective exploration of the assigned readings and their worldly significances. I will bring questions on the first and last days of class as well as for our first discussion of an author. For all other meetings, a student in the class will bring and pose discussion questions % reading quizzes. Five reading quizzes consisting of 3 questions requiring short answer responses will be randomly distributed over the course of the semester. The lowest score will be dropped and the remaining scores will be averaged. Quizzes are meant to encourage you to attend class regularly and keep up with the readings. They will be graded on a scale of 0-3: 3 is roughly an A, 2 is roughly a B, 1 is roughly a C, and 0 is no credit. Anyone who has read the assigned material carefully should have no problem earning a 2 on the quiz % midterm essay. A 5-7 page essay will respond to 1 out of 4 prompts, all of which deal with both DuBois and Gramsci. All prompts will ask you to perform what political theorists call close-readings : you will make good-faith efforts to understand what the texts mean in relation to one another and to undertake thoughtful evaluations of 3

4 what the texts argue in relation to a common theme. Here outside research could be helpful, but is not required. Specific criteria for evaluation as well as writing guides will be distributed as we approach the deadline for this assignment % final exam. The first part of the final will require you to respond to 5 out of 8 short-answer questions; the second part will require you to respond to 1 out of 2 essay questions. Short-answer questions will ask you to account for a particular concept, framework, argument, or passage from DuBois, Gramsci, Walzer, or Young. Essay questions will ask you to compare Walzer and Young with regards to a given theme or problem. Essay topics, but not the exact wording of the prompts will be distributed prior to the exam. V. Late policies Make-up quizzes and make-up examinations will be administered only in adequately documented cases of (a) personal or family emergency or (b) participation in University of Connecticut activities athletic or academic during regularly scheduled times. It is your responsibility to inform me about the need for paper extensions at least 48 hours before the final paper is due. Late essays will be accepted without penalty in sufficiently documented cases of personal or family emergencies. Otherwise, essays submitted after the specified deadline will be penalized one mark per 12 hours: an A paper turned in 0-12 hours late will count as an A-, an A- paper turned in hours late will count as a B+, and so forth. VI. Academic integrity There will be a zero-tolerance policy for any academic dishonesty or misconduct prohibited by the University of Connecticut s Student Code (quoted below): A fundamental tenet of all educational institutions is academic honesty; academic work depends upon respect for and acknowledgement of the research and ideas of others. Misrepresenting someone else s work as one s own is a serious offense in any academic setting and it will not be condoned. Academic misconduct includes, but is not limited to, providing or receiving assistance in a manner not authorized by the instructor in the creation of work to be submitted for academic evaluation (e.g., papers, projects, and examinations); any attempt to influence improperly (e.g., bribery, threats) any member of the faculty, staff, or administration of the University in any matter pertaining to academics or research; presenting, as one s own, the ideas or words of another for academic evaluation; doing unauthorized academic work for which another person will receive credit or be evaluated; and presenting the same or substantially the same papers or projects in two or more courses without the explicit permission of the instructors involved. 4

5 A student who knowingly assists another student in committing an act of academic misconduct shall be equally accountable for the violation, and shall be subject to the sanctions and other remedies described in The Student Code. VII. Texts The assigned readings will be available at the campus bookstore. If you purchase these books from a different source, pay attention to the publication information listed below. Some of these texts are available in several editions, but it would be ideal if we all had the same editions of the same texts. It will be easier to keep us all on the same page, for instance. 1. W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk, ISBN: Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, eds. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. ISBN: Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice. ISBN: Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference. ISBN: