Contemporary Political Thought

Catalog description

This course is intended as a general introduction to political theory since 1900. The theme for the Spring 2023 will be: Power and Politics, and the theorists examined will include Hannah Arendt, bell hooks, Michel Foucault, Bertrand de Jouvenel, and James C. Scott. Questions include: What is political power? How has it been exercised and by whom? Who should have power? Are power and violence inescapably intertwined? Do those without conventional political power understand and exercise power differently from those who traditionally wield it? How have technologies of surveillance and control by medical, psychiatric, computer and security experts altered where power is and how it operates?