Global Political Thought
TSE 609000 | 1 credits | Co-teach with Prof. Leigh K. Jenco

Course Description

We know that politics happens in all times and places. So does political theory—which we might understand as both scholarly and everyday reflection on political concepts, norms and goals. But typically the study of political theory in the academy has not been as global as its practice suggests. This course asks how we might think about politics if we take seriously a much wider, global range of thought about politics and try to bring all of these ideas across time and space into conversation on big questions: why do we need politics? How does a political community come into being in the first place? Who might act effectively for positive change in our communities, in our countries, and on the planet itself? Along the way, we will read classics such as the Dao De Jing as well as less well-known texts about politics such as Hayy Ibn Yaqzan. We begin and end the course with some thinking about methodology: how do we bring different voices into conversation in a way that makes sense of their contribution? Is this necessary to do, or is it mere cultural “appropriation”?