GAH 1068POWER AND SOCIETY

Catalog

This course will focus on the theme of the 2009-10 First Year Experience: Power. We will begin the course with a discussion of selections from the Freshmen common reading, Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, in the context of the theme. Students will then read a variety of texts: novels, memoirs, philosophical works, poetry, essays, speeches in order to explore the nature and function of human power. Through the readings we will examine both individual and social power and will discuss the ways in which they structure each other. Throughout the course, we will be engaging in evaluation questions regarding the goods and harms brought about by the exercise of power. Finally, we will return to ourselves, asking about our own power(s), about how they can be liberated and fruitfully developed.