Intro to Political Thought

Catalog description

What does "we the people" mean after the murder of George Floyd? This course traces an idea -- that free, rational, and self-interested individuals create a government using a social contract. This idea justified the American Revolution, the abolition of enslavement, women’s suffrage, and the civil rights movement in the 1960s. But after the murder of George Floyd, Americans wondered whether the contract was broken? This course interrogates whether these principles of rights and equality apply to all people regardless of gender identity, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc. We study people who created these ideas and also people who questioned these ideas: enslaved people who asked how the social contract could support slavery, women who wondered whether the “people” included them, and citizens of color who have asked when the promise of equality in the contract will be fully realized. The course includes all types of theory with a particular emphasis on Black political thought and linking foundational ideas to contemporary issues.