Fall/Winter Timetable

POL320Y1Y L5101

Modern Political Thought

Themes

This course examines central themes of the modern era through the careful reading of texts in 18th and 19th political thought that have shaped the way we think about politics today. We will explore the meaning of “modernity” and its association with the territorial state as the dominant form of political order. Is the history of modernity a story of progress in the direction of human freedom? Or is it inseparable from new forms of domination – imperialism, colonialism, slavery, and class- and gender-based oppression – that develop in tandem with the state? Does the advance of modern rationality bring enlightenment and emancipation, or does it diminish our humanity? The course explores these themes through the close reading of texts, bringing “canonical” European thinkers into conversation with some key thinkers from East Asia, the Black Atlantic, and South Asia.

Texts

Rousseau, Second Discourse and Social Contract; Kant, What is Enlightenment?, Perpetual Peace; Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France; Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Mill, On Liberty, Subjection of Women, Considerations on Representative Government; Chomin, A Discourse by Three Drunkards on Government; Hegel, Philosophy of Right; Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” My Bondage and My Freedom, Lecture on Haiti; Marx, On the Jewish Question, “Alienated Labour,” German Ideology, Communist Manifesto; Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality; Gandhi, Hind Swaraj.

Format and Requirements

TBA

Prerequisites

POL200Y1 or POL200Y5 or (POLC70H3, POLC71H3)

Exclusions
POLC73H3 or POLC74H3 or POL320Y5