Politics, Violence, and Liberation

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The 20th century saw the decline of European colonialism, as well as the rise and fall of fascism and communism.  Amidst these dramatic and turbulent changes, the notion of revolution rose to an almost fetishistic prominence.  While the word itself comes from an older cyclical notion of history and meant the return to and restoration of a previous order, in the 20th century notion was tied to popular movements, civic action, and insurrection for liberation and independence  – of a people, a country, class, gender, or religion.

This introductory seminar makes use of "revolutionary" politics to bring out fundamental concepts of political philosophy.  We start by confronting the question of political power and its conflicted relation with political violence.  We then turn to the classical revolutionary text, Marx's Communist Manifesto, to pick up the rather dubious concepts of class and History as well as to raise more profound question about economics, society, and politics.  With this company of developed concepts, we turn back to the American and French Revolutions and engage with one of the major political thinkers of the 20th century, Hannah Arendt.  Here we take up questions of individual agency, political judgment, rights, and freedom.

The latter part of the course looks at four examples of “revolutionary” change in the 20th century: colonial liberation from European empires (Algeria), Ghandi’s and Martin Luther King’s non-violent civil disobedience, the “velvet revolutions” of 1989, and the "Arab Spring."  The seminar concludes with a look at the worldwide social revolution of women and the "feminization of knowledge."

The seminar is supplemented by Dr. Colleen Hynes seminar in post-colonial literature. Students are encouraged to sample the readings and films for that seminar.

Requirements and Grading
Attendance:
Attendance is, of course, mandatory, especially as the soul of this class will be the ongoing and developing discussion. The SSES handbook policy on absences will be followed.

Assignments:
Assignments are given on the accompanying calendar and should be prepared for the due date. It is essential to the course that each student read each assignment in full before the day it is due. Quizzes will check for this. Since the type of material will be new to most students, there will be frequent asides and exercises offering guidance on how to read the text, take notes, and prepare the assignments.

Classroom:
Given the importance of class discussion (see above) participation counts.

The “Wiki”:
The course will make use of a “wiki” both for supplying handouts of all the readings as well as for reading questions, study advice, and projects.  Students are expected to check the wiki each night for updates and notices.

Papers, Quizzes, & Tests:
There will be intermittent surprise quizzes to check whether students are keeping up with the reading and with reading and class notes. In order to test your own developing abilities to analyze and reason, and to promote and improve the level of discussion, students are asked to write two short papers, take two tests (short essay questions), and take a final exam (a choice of several essay questions). I will follow departmental policies about due dates, lateness, grading, etc. Specific expectations for each of these will be handed out in class.

Topic specialist:
By the end of the first week of classes students will select a topic specialty.  Their responsibility is to inform themselves about some civic action or revolutionary event (past or ongoing) and contribute relevant information and examples from their topic to class discussions.

Grades:
Your grade will be computed as follows:
Quizzes, class preparation (topic specialty) and participation- 25%
Tests - 20%
Papers - 25%
Exam - 30%

Readings: Aside from On Revolution, available at the SSES bookstore, all readings will be found on the wiki.

Reading Questions.
Arendt
Marx manifesto and questions.
Kojeve - a summary paraphrase of Kojeve's essay on the Master/Servant dialectic in Hegel's Phenomenology.

Assignments.
The assignment syllabus is on the wiki.