POLS 359 - Global Political Theory Spring 2009 MWF 12-12:50pm Maybank 307 Dr. Kea Gorden gordenk@cofc.edu Office Hours: Mondays, 2:30-3:30, Thursdays 2-4pm, and by appointment Office Location: Department of Political Science, 114 Wentworth, Room 205 This course offers an exploration of the multiple perspectives of political thought that exist in the world outside of the Western Canon. We begin with a particular set of questions aimed at critically examining the political implications of the foundations of knowledge construction. What kinds of presumptions or naturalizations are elemental to western canonical political theory? Are the categories we use to order the world omnipresent and ahistorical and neutral? Is there such a thing as universal reason? How do we think about knowledge? How does our reliance upon the scientific method determine the questions we can ask? And finally, how is this line of questioning political? In response to the omissions and exclusions of western political theory, we will explore perspectives from around the globe, ranging from African and Buddhist political philosophy to post-colonial feminisms, to consider political theorizations of freedom, equality, justice, security and political organization. These contributions serve important purposes of democratizing the idea of political theory and expanding our concepts of political subjectivity and agency. The course will encourage students to examine how a knowledge of global perspectives allows political analysts a richer and more complex understanding of politics. Course Requirements Participation & Discussion: 10% of your final course grade throughout the semester. Individual Presentations: 15% of your final course grade on assigned dates In-class quizzes/writing exercises: 15% of your final grade 3 papers: 60% of your final course grade (first is worth 20%, due Feb. 15, the second is worth 20%, due March 22, and the third is due the last day of class, April 26 ) Participation and Discussion: 10% All students are expected to do all the assigned readings, be prepared to summarize the main issues and arguments, and participate in discussion on a regular basis. This course is designed to encourage critical thinking on controversial issues. Students will be frequently called upon to share their queries and opinions. If you find it difficult to speak in public, you should meet with the instructor during the first week of class to discuss strategies for resolving this problem. Individual Presentation: 15% Each student should select and make an oral presentation, which will take place on Fridays and in partners. When you present, you are also required to hand in a one-page written response. Write-ups should be one page maximum, typed, and carefully edited.
Most of all, it should demonstrate your engagement with the reading. They must provide evidence that you have done the weekly reading and give some critical thought to your grasp of the facts, concepts and debates in the reading. Quantity is not required; rather, two, three or one-paragraph questions or commentaries are fine. Quality is what is important. Don t worry about being incorrect, provided you have engaged the reading. The objective is to help students critically engage the ideas, theories and facts presented in readings and lectures. Learning how to pose the right analytic question is just as important as answering a question. I will reward those who are committed to the goals of the course and those who critically engage the readings. There will be more than one pair of students presenting each Friday. The task is to present a short, informal presentation on an assigned reading. The main part of presentation should be no longer than 5 minutes and the questions/discussion should last between 5 and 10 minutes. The presentation should consist of the following: - The main argument of the reading - Major concepts within the reading - The significance or usefulness of the reading - How the reading relates to past course readings and/or the course themes - The presentation should conclude with at least one question for class discussion from the readings she or he is presenting on Here are some examples of ways to pose good questions or develop critical commentary on the readings: 1. Summarize a theory or concept that is described in the readings concisely, and then apply the generalization to a different context and debate if and why it applies. 2. Take a quote from the text that you think is most important, one that captures the key argument in the readings, or one that puzzles you, and then analyze what the author is trying to explain, or fails to do, or how your own standpoint agrees or disagrees with the quote. Critique the bias you see. 3. Search for an anomaly, a contradiction or paradox in the assigned text. Authors says that something is true in such and such context, but s/he appears to overlook this rule or generalization in another passage/quote. Can both be true? 4. Compare and contrast the view of two assigned authors discussing the same social change, institution or cultural process. Search for the source of the difference. What explains why they agree and why they differ? What s the underlying assumption/method/theory/value? Question and answer sessions will follow the main presentation. In-Class Reading Responses: 15% Every Friday we will have a 10-minute written response to the week s readings. You will be responsible for commenting on a quote or a theme or idea from one or more reading that you found particularly interesting, compelling or problematic. Papers: 60% (Due 2/15, 3/22, 4/26)
There will be three papers due throughout the semester. I will give you the prompt one week before the paper is due. These papers will test your understanding of the reading material and expect you to critically examine the main ideas of the arguments in relationship to one another. I expect you to look up the citation styles on the Political Science homepage and follow this format, or just use MLA, Chicago or APA style. No lame excuses or late papers will be accepted. Course Materials Please make sure to frequently visit course WebCT for this course because ALL of the material for the course will be posted there. I request that you print these articles and bring them to class because we will frequently have discussions in class based upon particular sections of the text, and to participate in these discussions, you must have the materials with you. Week 1: Introduction: Understanding our Field(s) of Study What is comparative or global political theory? What is critical theory? How does our study intersect and diverge from the materials studied in other political theory courses? Readings for Week 1: Fred Dallmayr, Introduction: Toward a Comparative Political Theory. The Review of Politics, Vol. 59, No. 3, Non-Western Political Thought (Summer, 1997) 421-427 Elizabeth Philipose, Decolonizing Political Theory. Radical Pedagogy (2007) Wendy Brown, At the Edge: The Future of Political Theory in Edgework: Critical Essays on Knowledge and Politics. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2005. Weeks 2 3: Situating Our Locations of Knowledge Production Readings for Week 2: Karena Shaw, The Construction of Knowledge: Knowledge, Foundations, Politics. International Studies Review (2004) 6, 7-20. Donna Haraway, Situated Knowledge: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective in Simion, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge Press, 1991. Readings for Week 3: Stephen Toulmin, How Reason Lost Its Balance and The Invention of the Disciplines in Return to Reason. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2001. [32 pages] Arnold I. Davidson, Styles of Reasoning: From the History of Art to the Epistemology of Science in The Emergence of Sexuality. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2001 [16 pages]. Recommended: Ernest Gellner, Relativism and Universals in Rationality and Relativism (ed. by Hollis and Lukes). Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982 [19 pages]. Week 4-5: Emotion and Poetics as Sources of Knowledge and Bases for Praxis Readings for Week 4: Vrinda Dalmiya and Linda Alcoff, Are Old Wives Tales Justified? in Feminist Epistemologies. New York, Routledge, 1993 [34 pages].
Annette Watson and Orville Huntington, They re here I can feel them: the epistemic spaces of Indigenous and Western Knowledges in Social and Cultural Geography, Vol. 9, no. 3 (May 2008)257-281 [20 pages] Readings for Week 5: Liz Philipose, The Politics of Pain and the End of Empire. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 9:1 March 2007, 60-81 [21 pages]. M. Jacqui Alexander, Pedagogies of the Sacred: Making the Invisible Tangible in Pedagogies of Crossing. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005 [44 pages]. Recommended: Adrienne Rich, Blood, Bread, and Poetry: The Location of the Poet (1984) in Adrienne Rich s Poetry and Prose (ed. by Gelpi and Gelpi). New York: W. W. Norton and Co, 1993 [13 pages]. Weeks 6-8: Challenges to Political Subjectivity Emerging from Critical Race, Postcolonial and Feminist Theories Readings for Week 6: ***Paper #1 is due on Monday, February 15th Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcoloniality and the critique of history. Cultural Studies (2006) Vol 36, no. 4-5, July-September, 337-357 [20 pages] Mignolo, Walter, Post-Occidental Reason: The Crisis of Occidentalism and the Emergenc(y)e of Border Thinking in Local Histories/Global Designs. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2000 [25 pages]. Readings for Week 7: Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses in Feminist Review, no. 30, Autumn 1988, 61-88 [27 pages]. Saba Mahmood, The Subject of Freedom in Politics of Piety. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2005 [39 pages]. Readings for Week 8: David Theo Goldberg, Introduction and Modernity, Race, and Morality in Racist Culture: Philosophy and the Politics of Meaning. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993. [40 pages] Samuel Oluoch Imbo, Are There Connections Among African, African American, and Feminist Philosophies? in An Introduction to African Philosophy. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998. [16 pages] Week 9: NO CLASS SPRING BREAK Week 10-14: Intersections of Culture, Knowledge and Political Organization: Engaging and Expanding our Political Imaginations Readings for Week 10:
Kwasi Wiredu, Formulating Modern Thought in African Languages: Some Theoretical Considerations in The Surreptitious Speech (ed by V.Y. Mudimbe). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992 [21 pages]. Samuel Oluoch Imbo, What Should the Language(s) of African Philosophy Be? in An Introduction to African Philosophy. Boulder: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. [23 pages]. Readings for Week 11: ***Paper #2 is due on March 22 John and Jean Comaroff, Policing Culture, Cultural Policing: Law and Social Order in Postcolonial South Africa in Law and Social Inquiry (2004), 513-545. [32 pages] Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics in Public Culture 15(1): 11-40, 2003 [29 pages] Readings for Week 12: Aung San Suu Kyi, In Quest of Democracy and Freedom from Fear in Freedom from Fear. London: Penguin Books, 1991 [18 pages]. Russell Arben Fox, Confucian and Communitarian Responses to Liberal Democracy in The Review of Politics, Vol. 59, no.3, Summer 1997, pp 561-592 [31 pages]. Readings for Week 13: David Cortright, Grasping Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr: An American Gandhi in Gandhi and Beyond: Nonviolence for an Age of Terrorism. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2006. [54 pages] Readings for Week 14: Dalai Lama, Modern Society and the Quest for Human Happiness and Dependent Origination and the Nature of Reality in Ethics for the New Millenium. New York: Riverhead Books, 1999 [26 pages] David Loy, The Non-Duality of Good and Evil: Buddhist Reflections on the New Holy War in The Great Awakening: Buddhist Social Theory, Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003 [18 pages]. Readings for Week 15: ***Paper #3 is due on Monday, April 26 CATCH UP and Conclusion