Courses
INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL THINKING
PS 115
From Plato to Nietzsche, great thinkers in the Western tradition have asked about the nature and practice of political action. Thinking about politics is, knowingly or not, conducted against the background of this shared tradition. This is no less true of political thought that aims to break away from "the classics" than of political thought that finds in them a constant resource for both critical and constructive thinking. This course explores fundamental questions of politics through a core body of writings. At its center (about 7 weeks of a 14 week semester) will be a sustained and close reading of Plato's Republic. Thinking with Plato and also with complementary texts, we reflect upon key political concepts such as justice, democracy, authority, and "the political." We also explore such enduring questions as the relationship between the state and the individual; the conditions for peaceful political order; and the connection between morality and politics. This course is required for all political studies majors.
View the syllabus here.
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
PS 134
This course will provide an introduction to constitutional legal systems, including but not limited to the United States. The class is divided into two parts. The first part of the semester looks at the history of the idea of constitutionalism in Greece, England, and France. The second part explores the United States Constitutional revolution and engages current constitutional controversies, including the rights of individuals during crises, judicial review, and due process.
View the syllabus here.
THE FOUNDATION OF LAW
PS 267
Corporate executives hire high-priced lawyers to flout the law with impunity. Indigent defendants are falsely convicted, and even executed for crimes they did not commit. We say that law is the institutional embodiment of justice. And yet, it is equally true that law, as it is practiced, seems to have little connection to justice. As the novelist William Gaddis writes: "Justice? You get justice in the next world. In this world, you have the law." This course explores the apparent disconnect between law and justice. Can contemporary legal systems offer justice? Can we, today, still speak of a duty to obey the law? Is it possible for law to do justice?
Through readings of legal cases as well as political, literary, and philosophical texts, we seek to understand the problem of administering justice as it emerges in the context of contemporary legal institutions. Texts will include selections from Dostoevsky, Twain, Melville, Plato, Blackstone, Holmes, Milton, Kant, and others.
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DIGNITY AND THE HUMAN RIGHTS TRADITION
HRP 235
We live at a time when the claim to human rights is both taken for granted and regularly disregarded. One reason for the disconnect between the reality and the ideal of human rights is that human rights have never been given a secure philosophical foundation. Indeed, many have argued that absent a religiously grounded faith in human dignity, there is no legal ground for human rights. Might it be that human rights are simply well-meaning aspirations without legal or philosophical foundation? And what is dignity anyway? Ought we to abandon talk about dignity and admit that human rights are groundless? Against this view, human rights advocates, international lawyers, and constitutional judges continue to speak of dignity as the core value of the international legal system. Indeed, lawyers in Germany and South Africa are developing a "dignity jurisprudence" that might guarantee human rights on the foundation of human dignity. Is it possible, therefore, to develop a secular and legally meaningful idea of dignity that can offer a ground for human rights? This class explores both the modern challenge to dignity and human rights as well as attempts to resuscitate a new and more coherent secular ideal of dignity as a legally valid guarantee of human rights. In addition to texts including Hannah Arendt's book, Origins of Totalitarianism, we read legal cases, and documents from international law.
View the syllabus here.
REVENGE AND THE LAW
PS 268
To speak of revenge in a course on law is to lay bare an open wound at the heart of law. On the one hand, law is built upon the exclusion of vengeance. On the other hand, revenge remains a constant presence in criminal law. In spite of the best efforts of philosophers, moralists, and jurists to banish it, revenge remains an irrepressible social and legal force. This course asks the question: Can revenge be a just motive for criminal punishment? By considering those in the victims' rights movements who argue for the importance and justice of "legalizing" and thus legitimating revenge, we ask whether justice is actually something other than legalized revenge. To do so, we explore the phenomenon of revenge as it has been practiced, imagined, and conceived throughout history. Through a close reading of texts, films, and works of art, we will ask: why does revenge persist as an ideal of justice despite the best efforts of lawyers to banish it?
View the syllabus here.
RADICAL AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
PS 358
This seminar is a political philosophical exploration of radical American democracy. While political characterizations of democracy see it as a form of government, this course explores the essence of democracy as a specifically modern way of life. To do so, it turns to some great thinkers of American democracy such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and Ralph Ellison. What unites these radical democrats is the conviction that democracy is a thoughtful practice of individuals rather than an insitutional form of governance. As an ideal of radical individualism, American democratic thought offers, perhaps surprisingly, an aristocratic critique of the limits of democratic government even as it, seen from another side, makes possible our culture of narcissistic consumerism. Our aim is to understand the democratic spirit of radical individualism that has proven so seductive and powerful since its modern birth in the American revolution.
View the syllabus here.
THE LETTER ON HUMANISM
PS 380
This class is an advanced seminar. You are required and expected to attend every class meeting and to be prepared. Reading the texts is only the bare minimum preparation, and is, on its own, not sufficient. For the main text, The Letter on Humanism, you are expected to read it in its entirety at least twice during the first two weeks of the semester. You are then to re-read it as we go through it. There will be other texts to read during the semester. You need to allot a substantial amount of time to read these texts. This is essential. The seminar format requires that you not only read, but also engage with these texts before you come to class.
View the syllabus here.
HANNAH ARENDT SEMINAR
PS 420
This course is dedicated to reading some of Hannah Arendt's seminal works with a particular focus on her thinking about science and art as these two human activities relate to the human condition. In addition to close readings of some of Arendt's most important books and essays, we will also explore the challenge that scientific rationality and artificial intelligence pose to the humanity of humans. In conjunction with the 2010 Arendt Center Conference on "Human Being in an Inhuman Age," we will ask how Arendt's work helps us to think about the ways that automation, artificial intelligence, and rational machines are transforming the very nature of what it means to be human. In addition to Bard undergraduates, the participants will include visiting fellows from the Hannah Arendt Center for Ethical and Political Thinking. The course is also open to select students from the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS). Beyond scheduled class meetings, students are expected to attend lectures and other events sponsored by the Arendt Center and CCS.
View the syllabus here.