Department website: http://politicalscience.jhu.edu
The programs of the Political Science Department are designed to help students attain a deeper understanding of politics and civic life in its various dimensions. The department encourages students to become sophisticated theoretically and to study politics in global and comparative perspective. We divide the curriculum into American Politics, Comparative Politics, Political Theory, and International Relations (and Law and Politics at the graduate level). Students are encouraged to develop expertise in several of these areas.
The department has 38 faculty members. The undergraduate program offers a broad range of courses about politics and government at local, state, national, and international levels. In addition to taking courses on the Homewood campus, students can do independent research under the guidance of a faculty mentor, and take courses at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C.
Undergraduate Programs
Political Science courses can contribute to two different majors:
Political Science, Bachelor of Arts
The major in political science described below is designed for students interested in intensive study of the institutions, theory, and problems of politics, government, and modern political culture.
International Studies, Bachelor of Arts
The department contributes to an interdisciplinary program leading to B.A. or B.A./M.A. degrees in International Studies. This program and its requirements are described under International Studies.
For current course information and registration go to https://sis.jhu.edu/classes/
Courses
AS.190.101. Introduction to American Politics. 3 Credits.
This course examines the ideals and operation of the American political system. It seeks to understand how our institutions and politics work, why they work as they do, and what the consequences are for representative government in the United States. Emphasis is placed on the federal government and its electoral, legislative, and executive structures and processes. As useful and appropriate, attention is also given to the federal courts and to the role of the states. The purpose of the course is to understand and confront the character and problems of modern government in the United States in a highly polarized and plebiscitary era.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.102. Introduction To Comparative Politics. 3 Credits.
To understand politics, the 24-hour news cycle of the modern media takes us only so far. In this course, we will take a step back and implement an intellectually rigorous method. Scholars of comparative politics use the method of comparison to illuminate important political phenomena of our times. Following this method, we will embark on a scholarly tour of the world and compare the politics of various countries. We will also trace these politics back to their historical sources. We will adopt the assumption that there is something to be gained from such comparisons across space and time.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.108. Contemporary International Politics. 3 Credits.
An introduction to international politics. Emphasis will be on continuity and change in international politics and the causes of war and peace. The first half of the course will focus on events prior to the end of the Cold War, including the Peloponnesian War, the European balance of power, imperialism, the origins and consequences of WWI and WWII, and the Cold War. The second half will focus on international politics since 1990, including globalization, whether democracies produce peace, the impact of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and the prospects for peace in the 21st century. Theories of realism and liberalism will also be considered. This course was previously AS.190.209.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.111. Introduction to Global Studies. 3 Credits.
This course surveys scholarly approaches to processes, relations, institutions, and social structures that cross, subvert, or transcend national borders. The course will also introduce students to research tools for global studies.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.112. Introduction to Geopolitics. 3 Credits.
An Introduction to materialist and systemic realist and liberal theories, in four parts: theory, pre-global, global and planetary.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.122. Western Political Theory. 3 Credits.
An introductory overview of Western Political Theory, starting with Plato and the Greeks, moving through Machiavelli and the moderns, and ending up with a brief look at current political theory. We will analyze a range of theoretical styles and political approaches from a handful of thinkers, and develop our skills as close readers, efficient writers, and persuasive speakers.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.180. Introduction to Political Theory. 3 Credits.
In the Republic, the ancient Greek philosopher Plato posed three questions: what is justice? How would a just person live? How would a just society be governed? These three questions form the basic subject matter of of political theory. In this course we will survey the history of political theory, reading a series of political theorists who took up Plato’s questions in a wide range of contexts, from Renaissance Italy and early modern England to late colonial India and the Jim Crow US South. Throughout, we’ll consider whether there are better and worse answers to these questions, or simply different answers that appear better or worse depending on the perspective from which one considers them. We’ll look closely at how the circumstances in which political theorists lived influenced their thinking, and how those circumstances should influence our own evaluation of their thinking. And we’ll ask whether Plato’s questions were the right questions to ask in his time, whether they are still relevant in ours, and whether there are other questions that political theorists would do better to spend their time considering.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.181. Introduction to Political Theory: Power and Authority. 3 Credits.
This course provides an introduction to Western political theory, focusing on theories and practices of power and authority. We will examine the extent to which it is possible to describe, theorize, and make visible how political power operates, and power's relationship to authority, knowledge, truth, and political freedom. A strong tradition of political thought argues that people's consent is what makes political power legitimate. But what if one of the most insidious workings of power is its ability to prevent us from telling the difference between consent and coercion? Can power allow certain authorities to effectively brainwash people? If so, does that mean that those who obey authority should no longer be held politically responsible for their actions? Does the coercive power of norms and conformity prevent any robust practice of freedom? What role (if any) should state power play in negotiating questions of morality, religion and sexuality? Lastly, we will be haunted by a related question: can political theories of power make people free, or are those theories implicated in the very coercion they profess to oppose? Classes will be a combination of lectures, critical discussions/debates, film screenings and presentations. Throughout the term, you will sharpen your ability to formulate coherent written and spoken arguments by organizing and supporting your thoughts in a persuasive manner. An important part of this skill will include the ability to wrestle with complex and controversial political problems that lack any single answer. The stakes of these problems will be brought to life by the political examples we will study, and made legible by looking through the theoretical lenses of diverse thinkers.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.204. Ancient Political Thought. 3 Credits.
The premise of this course is that a political perspective is tied up with a (meta)physical one, that is to say, with ideas about the nature of Nature and of the status of the human and nonhuman elements within it. How is the universe ordered? Who or what is responsible for it? What place do or should humans occupy within it? How ought we to relate to nonhuman beings and forces? We will read three different responses to such questions and show how they are linked to a particular vision of political life. In the first, the world into which human are born is ordered by gods whose actions often appear inexplicable: Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, Oedipus the King by Sophocles, and Hippolytus by Euripedes will represent this tragic vision of the cosmos. In the second, Plato , in Republic and in Phaedrus, the forces of reason and eros play central and powerful roles. In the third, Augustine of Hippo presents a world designed by a benevolent, omnipotent God who nevertheless has allowed humans a share in their own fate. We end the course with Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy , which offers a perspective on these three visions of the world -- the tragic, the rational, and the faithful -- which will help us evaluate them in the light of contemporary political and ecological concerns.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.220. Global Security Politics. 3 Credits.
Contemporary and emerging technologies of nuclear (weapons, terrorism, energy) outer space (missiles, missile defense, asteroids), biosecurity (bioweapons, pandemics, terrorism) and cyber (war, spying, surveillance) and implications for security, international politics, arms control, and political freedom.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.223. Understanding the Food System. 3 Credits.
This course examines the politics and policies that shape the production and consumption of food. Topics include food security, obesity, crop and animal production, and the impacts of agriculture on climate change. We will also consider the vulnerabilities of our food system to challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as efforts to transform food and agriculture through new food technologies and grass-roots movements to create a more democratic food system.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have completed AS.190.405 may not enroll in this class.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.224. The Politics and Society of E. Asia. 3 Credits.
This introductory course seeks to examine the politics of China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan as part of a distinct region. We will seek to understand how individual polities responded to regional developments and trends, such as the tide of colonialism, socialism, regional economic developments, and democracy. The course will introduce students to the most pressing questions concerning the rise of China, the future of the innovation economy, and intra-regional tensions.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.225. Democracy in America: Classics in Context. 3 Credits.
What principles animate American democracy? How have those principles been debated? To what extent have the institutions and practices of American government aimed to embody those principles? And how well have they succeeded in that aim? In this course, we consider these questions from two distinct angles. First, by reading historical texts, we will learn how the people that participated in or observed the colonization of North America, the American Revolution, the framing of the US Constitution, the Civil War, the Progressive Era, the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Rights Movement, and the modern conservative movement understood themselves and their actions. Second, by reading contemporary scholarship on the origins and evolution of the American political order, we will try to discern patterns of stability and change that emerge in concert with, or even despite, the ideas and intentions of influential individuals and powerful groups. Throughout the course, we examine the relationship between political institutions, individual incentives and group solidarities, and political ideas. By the end of the course, students will improve their grasp on the history of our political present and, perhaps, gain a better sense of how their actions can influence our political future.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.227. U.S. Foreign Policy. 3 Credits.
This course provides an analysis of US foreign policy with a focus on the interests, institutions, and ideas underpinning its development. It offers a broad historical survey that starts with US involvement in the First World War, covers major developments of the twentieth century, and concludes with contemporary issues. Important themes include the developments underpinning the emergence of the liberal world order, strategies of containment during the Cold War, nuclear deterrence and antiproliferation efforts, the politics of international trade, alliance politics, technological and security policy, and the re-emergence of great power competition.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.228. The American Presidency. 3 Credits.
Over the past several decades, the power and importance of America’s presidency have greatly expanded . Of course, presidential history includes both ups and downs, some coinciding with the rise and fall of national party systems and others linked to specific problems, issues, and personalities. We should train our analytic eyes, however, to see beneath the surface of day-to-day and even decade-to-decade political turbulence. We should focus, instead, on the pronounced secular trend of more than two and a quarter centuries of American history. Two hundred years ago, presidents were weak and often bullied by Congress. Today, presidents are powerful and often thumb their noses at Congress and the courts. For better or worse, we have entered a presidentialist era.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.231. Politics of Income Inequality. 3 Credits.
This course is about the interplay of democracy and capitalism. A core principle of democracy is equality. A core principle of capitalism is inequality. In democracies, the resource-poor are vote-rich. In contrast, the resource-rich are vote-poor. This helps combining capitalist economic systems with democratic political systems (“democratic capitalism”). But the sharp increase in income inequality in recent decades raises questions about the viability of democratic capitalism. What are the patterns, causes, and consequences of (income) inequality? How does inequality influence how democracy and capitalism interact? Why are there large differences in terms of redistribution between countries? For concreteness, the course compares the U.S. case to other rich democracies.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.239. Power and Global Politics. 3 Credits.
Global politics involves power: hard and soft power; power over, power with, and power to; resources as power; and relations and processes of power. This course will explore aspects of power as they play out in case studies of diplomacy and war, global markets, and communications networks (cyber and other information technologies). The course will also examine the nature of actors and the powers they have to act across state borders. Readings will include classic texts on power, as well as more recent works of International Relations scholarship, and class assignments will focus on using insights from these works to draw one’s own positions on foreign policy issues.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.246. Climate Solutions: The Global Politics and Technology of Decarbonization. 3 Credits.
This course provides an introduction to climate solutions by reviewing the politics and technologies in all major sectors: electricity, transportation, biofuels, hydrogen, buildings, heavy industry, and agriculture. In each area, we will first understand the existing technologies and potential solutions. But to understand decarbonization, we also have to study the political economy of these technologies. What role do the technologies play in the broader economy? Who will win or lose from the transition? What firms and countries dominate and control current and emerging supply chains? What makes a climate solutions project bankable? How can states design policies, regulations, and programs to successfully manage the politics of technology change?
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.249. Fictional World Politics: International Relations Through Fiction. 3 Credits.
The plots and settings of fictitious works provide “cases” for the exploration of international relations theories. Incorporates literature, film, and works of IR scholarship.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.251. Labor and American Politics. 3 Credits.
This course will explore working people’s political strategies from the Civil War through the present. We'll examine the shifting alliances among trade unions and political parties, and investigate mobilizations by freed people, women, immigrants, and LGBTQ workers. And we’ll pay special attention to the ways that workers’ action shaped the development of the modern American state.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.252. Introduction to the Conduct of IR Research. 3 Credits.
Course Description: This course introduces students to the conduct of social science research in the field of International Relations. Students will develop skills for evaluating scholarship and will be introduced to concepts and methods that they will be able to use for research assignments in their subsequent courses. Topics include: research design and how to review the scholarly literature; finding, evaluating, gathering, and organizing evidence/data; and introduction to evaluation of hypotheses using statistical analysis, comparative case study analysis, and other techniques. Recommended for students who have already taken a "gateway" course in IR such as Contemporary International Politics or Introduction to Global Studies.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.255. Race and Racism in International Relations. 3 Credits.
This course introduces students to the foundational importance of race and racism to the construction of our contemporary global order. Topics include the Crusades, European imperialism, eugenics, Apartheid, freedom struggles, decolonization, and global development.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.267. Introduction to Political Economy. 3 Credits.
An introduction to the fundamental questions and concepts of political economy: money, commodities, profit, and capital. The course will study the nature of economic forces and relations as elements larger social and political orders.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.286. Liberalism, Republicanism, and Democracy in American Political Theory. 3 Credits.
For 250 years, American politics and society have reflected tensions between two foundational ideals. On the one hand, the notion of republican citizenship in the Declaration of Independence has inspired notions of the common good and institutions from majoritarian democracy to jury duty and state militias. Meanwhile, the tradition of liberal protections eventually enshrined in the Bill of Rights has grown to guarantee equal treatment and more rights for more people. At times, these two principles have gone hand in hand – at others, they have pointed in two very different directions. In this class, we will explore the philosophical origins of liberalism and republicanism and trace them through historical events and cultural landmarks, from the Revolutionary War until today. In the process, we will study, interpret, and discuss the contentious history of democracy in America.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.301. Political Science as Public Good. 3 Credits.
What role does political science play in a time of significant government transformation? What role should it play? This class will combine a public engagement practicum with a deep dive into the history of political science as a discipline. Political science was designed at the outset with both empirical and normative goals in mind. What were these empirical and normative goals? How have they shaped the discipline today? Students should have taken courses in the department before and have some interest in using the tools of the discipline to understand our current condition.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.302. Human Rights and Global Justice. 3 Credits.
This course investigates the norms, rules, and institutions associated with efforts to achieve international and global justice. We begin with arguably the most familiar vehicle for moral advocacy and global justice in the latter part of the twentieth century: international human rights. Readings consider both the achievements and limitations of human rights ideas and institutions. The second part of the course then reflects on the more ambitious question of what global justice could and should look like in the future. The course will address liberal theories as well as critical perspectives, including those concerned with the experiences and struggles of marginalized groups and societies. Readings and discussions will address various pressing topics in global affairs, which may include: food insecurity, humanitarian crises, climate change, racism, global health, migration, and artificial intelligence. Students will complete the course with a deeper understanding of the challenges associated with using rights-based instruments and institutions to remedy global injustices with complex social, cultural, economic, and political underpinnings.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.304. Latinos and the American Political Landscape. 3 Credits.
This course examines Latinos and the American political landscape – taking seriously the political lives of Latinos to sharpen accounts of American political development. In Part I: Latinos and American Empire, we will examine how American state building, American racial capitalism, and American empire created a varied set of racialized citizenship regimes that shaped the legality and membership of Latinos – depending on the interplay between domestic racial hierarchies and international projects. In Part II: Latinos and the Administrative State, we will examine how the regulation of Latino immigrants and asylum seekers from Latin America and the Caribbean have been an engine for American political development – including the making of border bureaucracies, networked policing that harnesses the institution of federalism, and the development of ocean-spanning detention infrastructure. In Part III: Latinos as Targets, we will examine how Latinos became racialized as ‘illegals’ and became the prime targets of state action – and how state efforts have led to the suppressing of political agency, mobilization of collective action, and even integration of Latinos into the enforcement apparatus. In Part IV: Latinos, Hierarchies, and Power, we will examine the political power of those most marginalized among the Latino population – including Black, Trans, Queer, Immigrant, and Undocumented Latinos – to learn about how these groups contend with intragroup and intergroup hierarchies, their role in intersectional movements, and their organizing under repressive conditions. In Part V: Latinos and Placemaking, we conclude with Latino placemaking across the United States to examine how Latinos – in relation with and to, and in coalition with Black, Indigenous, and Asian organizing – are cultivating and asserting political and policy influence in the face of climate change, policing, detention, and gentrification.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.305. Human Rights as a Practice, Weapon, and Symbol. 3 Credits.
This course studies the complexity of international human rights as a vehicle for political change. The course approaches human rights as a set of legal instruments and practices, but also as a flexible political and symbolic toolbox used to address sometimes very divergent claims to justice. It pays attention to the roles of states, as well as the growing authority of human rights organizations, institutions, and online networks. We begin with a survey of major international human rights instruments before using a series of case studies to better understand how those instruments are used in practice. Rather than assume that human rights are always effective and benevolent, we set out to consider which kinds of policies they enable and which they foreclose. Cases also raise questions about the universality of human rights across cultural settings and demand critical reflection on how human rights function in North-South relations. The course draws from research aimed at improving the practice of human rights, as well as perspectives approaching human rights as instruments of power.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.306. Latin American Politics and Society in Comparative and Historical Prespective. 3 Credits.
The seminar will introduce students to the political and economic trajectories of Latin America as a whole and of individual countries, including Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. Special attention will be paid to the long-term trajectory of the political regime (democracy versus dictatorship) and of economic development (variations in GDP per capita). Competing theories, from economic dependence to historical institutionalism, will be examined for their contribution to our understanding of Latin America’s relative economic backwardness and low quality democracies.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.308. Democracy and Dictatorship: Theory and Cases. 3 Credits.
The course will cover three topics: 1) The conceptualization of political regime, democracy and authoritarianism. We will also consider neighboring concepts of other macro-political structures—government, state, and administration—in order to be able to demarcate what is distinctive about the study of political regimes.2) The characterization of political regimes in most Western and some non-Western countries, in history and today. We will centrally focus on the so called “Waves of Democratization,” but we will also consider stories with less happy outcomes, that is, processes that led to the breakdown of democracies and the installation of repressive dictatorships.3) The explanation(s) of the stability and change of political regimes around the world. Theoretical accounts of regime change come in many flavors—emphasis on economic versus political causes, focus on agents and choices versus structures and constraints, international versus domestic factors, among others. We will consider most of them.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.310. The Global Color Line: American Segregation and Colonial Order. 3 Credits.
At the end of the 19th century racial segregation was imagined as a more than a part of Jim Crow in the U.S. South: it was imagined as a model for global order. Theorists of imperial rule crisscrossed the Atlantic to study “race relations” in the United States to bolster projects of colonial rule in Africa and the Pacific. This course will unpack the theories of spatial, racial, and urban control that underwrote these visions of global order as well as the long-lasting material impact of these ideas on cities across the globe. Together, we will also uncover the role of Baltimore, as the first city in the United States to try and implement a law upholding residential segregation, in these international relations. Other case studies include Charleston, Chicago, and Johannesburg and topics include the politics of rioting, racial capitalism, race war, gender and sexuality, and public health.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.314. What is Money?. 3 Credits.
This undergraduate seminar will explore the mysteries of money. We will focus on a central and straightforward, but vexing question: what is money? Pursuing this question will take us from deep philosophical explorations of the nature of money, through the diverse history of money and theories of money, to today’s complex and dynamic financial instruments – from securities, to derivatives, to crypto.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Science and Data (FA2),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
AS.190.316. America at War in Korea. 3 Credits.
This course takes a “war and society” approach to the Korean War. It explores the ways in which the war entangled the United States and Korea, shaping society and politics in the US and on the Korean peninsula. The course looks at the Korean War “in the round,” as involving culture, gender, and economy as well as military operations, diplomacy and strategy. We will consider the causes, course and consequences of the war locally and globally and we will look at literature and film as well as history and social science. Properly understanding a war requires an interdisciplinary approach. Students will come away from the course not only knowing about the Korean War but also how to approach understanding any war in all its dimensions.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.317. Marxism and Revolution. 3 Credits.
What is "Marxism"? After years of obscurity, Marxism has returned to recent political and academic debates, often without any clear indication of what the term might actually mean, or how it might differ from other "radical" political traditions. In this class, we will study and discuss the most important works of Karl Marx and Marxian thinkers, from their philosophical foundations to their analysis of global capitalism, class struggle, and the roles of states and culture. In the second part of the semester, we will trace this tradition through some of the great upheavals in the 20th century: from the Russian Revolution to particular variants of the struggles against colonialism in the developing world and against racism in the United States. In the process, we will focus on the central ideas distinguishing Marxism from other philosophies as well as from adjacent, allied, and rival political movements.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.318. Does Israel Have a Future?. 3 Credits.
The future of Israel has never been more uncertain. Although external threats from Arab countries have abated, the danger posed by a nuclear attack from Iran grows with each passing day. Equally alarming is the growing domestic threat to Israel’s existence as a Jewish democracy. Efforts by Israel’s ruling coalition to weaken the High Court call into question whether the liberal democratic character of Israel can persist. The possibility of civil war, once thought impossible, cannot be discounted. In assessing how Israel can cope with these existential threats, lessons from the destruction of the ancient Israelite kingdoms will be examined.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.319. Policy & Politics Design. 3 Credits.
The study of public policy is the study of power—who has it, how it is acquired, and how policies themselves grant or diminish the power of individuals and groups. It is also the study of choice—how political actors make consequential decisions to deploy their resources in different ways, some of which enhance magnify their power while others diminish it. This class will examine the scholarly literature on how public policy is made and how it can be changed. We will also engage directly with actors seeking to change public policy, in order to integrate our academic knowledge with their practical experience.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.322. Future of American Democracy. 3 Credits.
For the most part, observers of American politics have not considered the possibility that the American democratic regime might be at risk. But the unexpected election of Donald Trump in 2016 and the subsequent course of his presidency have occasioned a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety about whether democracy in the United States is at risk and whether American political institutions can withstand the stresses of contemporary politics. This course will use the Trump era to explore the conditions that seem to threaten the stability of the American regime. We will begin by exploring the political circumstances that led to Trump’s rise. We will then examine what we can learn from the experience of other countries about the conditions that make democracy either robust or fragile. Finally, we will consider how a set of contemporary political conditions in the United States — extreme partisan polarization, intense racial antagonism, growing economic inequality, and expanded executive power — contribute to the challenges facing American democracy today and in the future.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.326. Democracy And Elections. 3 Credits.
An examination of most aspects of democratic elections with the exception of th e behavior of voters. Topics include the impact of various electoral systems and administrative reforms on the outcome of elections, standards for evaluations of electoral systems, and the impact of the Arrow problem on normative theories of democratic elections.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.327. Politics of Information. 3 Credits.
Considers global and comparative politics of information, information technologies, and the Internet. Examines governance of information (ownership of information, rights to information, privacy) and governance of information technologies (domain names, social media websites, etc.).
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.328. Political Thought in the Americas. 3 Credits.
Reflection on political ideas and institutions in the United States is often oriented by the notion that the US is in some sense exceptional. For some commentators, the US is exceptionally democratic, exceptionally stable, exceptionally productive, and exceptionally innovative. For others, the US is exceptionally racist, exceptionally unequal, exceptionally violent, and exceptionally unhealthy. What both sides share is a common point of comparative reference in Europe. For all these commentators, Europe is the norm against which all of the exceptional qualities of the US stand out. In this course, we will ask how well notions of US exceptionalism stand up against the different comparative references found in the Americas, focusing in particular on the history of political thought in the Americas. We’ll begin by studying texts from the pre-colonial and colonial periods, noting similarities and differences between the political institutions, economies, and social and racial hierarchies of in the regions that comprised British, Spanish, Portuguese, and French America. Next, we’ll consider the US, Latin American, and Caribbean independence movements, early constitutionalism, and debates on women’s role in society, slavery, and the rights of Indigenous Americans, asking what, if anything, distinguished the US from its neighbors in its early years. Finally, we’ll examine theories of imperialism, racism, patriarchy, exploitation, and environmental destruction that have emerged from the Americas in the course of the 20th century, to see how both shared and divergent historical experiences have shaped perspectives relevant to contemporary political issues.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.329. National Security-Nuclear Age. 3 Credits.
This course examines the impact of weapons of mass destruction on international politics with an emphasis on security issues. The first half of the course focuses on the history of nuclear weapons development during the Cold War and theories of deterrence. The second half of the class considers contemporary issues including terrorism, chemical and biological weapons, ballistic missile defense and proliferation. Requirements include a midterm, final and a ten page paper.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.330. Japanese Politics. 3 Credits.
This course introduces students to the major debates and issues of postwar Japanese politics. Topics include nationalism, electoral politics, civil society, and immigration.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.331. America and the World. 3 Credits.
This course examines the unique position of the United States in world politics. We will briefly survey the broader international relations literature on the dynamics of power and influence in world politics and work through empirics related to American foreign policy. The course will encompass security politics as well as the economic, monetary, and ideational dimensions of American influence. Interested students must have completed at least one 100 or 200 level introductory course in international relations.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.333. American Constitutional Law. 3 Credits.
This course covers enduring debates about the way the Constitution has structured the U.S. government and about which powers the Constitution assigns to the federal government and to the states. We will examine these debates in the context of American political history and thought by studying the writings of prominent participants, and landmark Supreme Court cases.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.334. Constitutional Law. 3 Credits.
Topics include executive and emergency power, racial and gender equality, and selected free speech and religious freedom issues.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.335. Imagining Borders. 3 Credits.
What is a border and why do borders matter in global politics. What do borders mean under conditions of globalization? An examination of the politics of borders, transborder flows, and networks within and across borders. The readings, which come from political science and other social science disciplines, will include theoretical and case-specific works. Goals for this writing intensive course also include learning to identify researchable questions, to engage with the scholarly literature, and to understand appropriate standards of evidence for making claims.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.337. Politics of the Korean Diaspora. 3 Credits.
This seminar explores some of the core questions in the study of citizenship, migration, and racial and ethnic politics through the lens of Korean diasporic populations in the United States, Japan, China, and the former Soviet Union. We will examine how immigration, citizenship, and minority policies have structured and constrained the relationship of Korean communities to both the receiving and sending states. As a diasporic group, is there a collective self-identification among members of Korean communities that transcends territorial, hemispheric, linguistic, and cultural differences? Or is the Korean ethnic identity more a reflection of racial and ethnic politics in the receiving society? What factors determine the assimilability of a particular group at a given historical moment?
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.339. American Racial Politics. 3 Credits.
Recommended Course Background: AS.190.214
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.345. Public Opinion. 3 Credits.
This course provides an overview of public opinion in the United States. We will explore what affects people’s political opinions, how opinions change, and how opinions affect (and are affected by) politics. Some of the questions we will discuss are: What is public opinion? How much do Americans know about politics? How do the issue positions of leading politicians affect public opinion? How do race relations affect public opinion? What role does partisanship play in all this? When and how do people change their minds about politics? How can my voice be heard in politics? The class will read papers that include quantitative/statistical work; a prior knowledge of statistical methods would be helpful but it is not required for success in the course. The final paper will be based on an original research project, the successful completion of which does not require any statistical training.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.346. Foundations of International Relations Theory. 3 Credits.
This course is a broad conceptual introduction to international relations theory in a format that stresses close reading and critical discussion. We will explore mainstream theoretical perspectives and critiques of those perspectives, as well as more recent developments in the field. By the end of the course, students will have a firm grasp of the core issues and debates in the field. The course is conceptually demanding; interested students should have at least completed an introductory course in political science.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.347. A New Cold War? Sino-American Relations in the 21st Century. 3 Credits.
“Can the United States and China avoid a new Cold War? One might think not given disputes over the South China Sea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, human rights, trade, ideology and so much more. Moreover, competition for influence in the developing world and American concerns as to whether China will replace it as the preeminent world power suggest a new Cold War is in the offing. Nevertheless, their extensive economic ties and need to work together to solve common problems such as climate change, nuclear proliferation, and pandemics argues against a continuing confrontation. This course will examine whether cooperation or conflict will define Sino-American relations, and whether a new Cold War—or even a shooting war—lies in the future.”
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.348. Business, Finance, and Government in E. Asia. 3 Credits.
Business, Finance, and Government in East Asia explores the dynamics of East Asia's economic growth (and crises) over the last fifty years. We will examine Japan's post-war development strategy, the Asian tiger economies, and China's dramatic rise. Centered on case studies of major corporations, this course examines the interplay between politics and economics in East Asia, and considers the following questions: How have businesses navigated East Asia’s complex market environment? In what ways can the state foster economic development? How has the financial system been organized to facilitate investment? What are the long-term prospects for growth in the region?
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.350. Political Violence. 3 Credits.
This class considers the range of political violence in the 21st century. Topics to be considered are the persistence of interstate and civil wars, targeted killings, terrorism, ethnic conflict, nuclear war, genocide, lessons from Ukraine, the rise of China, humanitarian intervention, and the impact of new technologies such as AI and autonomous weaponry on armed warfare. A 15-20 page research paper and in-class examination are required. A background in international relations is desirable but not required.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.353. China and the World. 3 Credits.
This introductory course explores China's expanding global presence and influence in the context of rising US-China tensions. We will begin with an overview of China's rise since market opening in the 1980s, leading up to its ascendence as a global power in recent times. In addition to learning about the historical and political-economic dimensions of China's engagement with the world, the course aims to impart you with some basic skills in evaluating the quality of evidence and expertise, so that you can form your own informed assessment of contentious issues.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.355. Comparative Racial Politics. 3 Credits.
Whether thought of as a biological reality or a social construction, “race” is viewed simultaneously as global and as intensely domestic. In this course I seek to examine race from a comparative perspective. What if we thought of race as a political construction, one produced both domestically and transnationally? In this class we will examine how race and racism are produced across as well as within borders, comparing the United States with similar and dissimilar cases. Further we will examine how comparative racial politics shape and are shaped by political movements, ideologies, and orders.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.358. Liberal Education: A Contested Question. 3 Credits.
What is liberal education, and what should it be? If such an education liberates, what does it liberate from? How does that liberation happen? What virtues does liberal education cultivate? What are its characteristic pitfalls? How does liberal education relate to the contemporary debates of political life, and how might it serve the public good? This course, co-taught by a professor of postcolonial politics at Johns Hopkins University and a conservative scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, will bring together divergent perspectives around a set of landmark texts about liberal education for a common conversation, engaging with enduring questions and contemporary political controversies.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.360. Data Science meets Political Science. 1 Credit.
How might data science help us to better understand political phenomena? This course allows students who might not be computer scientists to understand the various applications of data science in political science.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
AS.190.364. Conversations on the Crisis in the Middle East. 1 Credit.
This class introduces students to some of the most vexing issues in the Middle East. Students will listen to a series of five Zoom conversations from renowned experts with diverse views discussing anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, origins of the conflict and possible solutions, human rights, international law, and freedom of speech and academic freedom. After each session, the class will get together (usually over lunch or dinner) to discuss the points made by the speakers. At the end of the course, students will submit a ten-page paper on a subject related to these discussions. No prior experience in Middle East affairs or international politics is required.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.365. Research and Inquiry in the Social Sciences. 3 Credits.
How do we assess research in the social sciences? What makes one study more persuasive than another? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the main methods used in research in the social sciences? What are the elements that go into designing a research project? This course considers these questions, introducing students to the basic principles of research design.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.190.366. Free Speech and the Law in Comparative Perspective. 3 Credits.
This class explores the ideas and legal doctrines that define the freedom of speech. We will examine the free speech jurisprudence of the U.S. in comparison to that of other systems, particularly the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and the Supreme Court of Canada.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.370. Chinese Politics. 3 Credits.
This course is designed to help students better understand the politics of China. Lectures will focus on the tools of governance that China has employed to navigate its transition from plan to market, provide public goods and services to its citizens, and to maintain social control over a rapidly changing society. The course will draw heavily from texts covering a range of subjects including China's political economy, social and cultural developments, regime dynamics, and historical legacies. Students interested in authoritarian resilience, governance, post-communist transition, and domestic will find this course particularly instructive.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.373. Theories of Global Violence. 3 Credits.
In this course, we will explore a constellation of theories loosely tied together under the rubric ‘violence’. Where and to whom does violence occur? What qualifies as violent, and why? The focus of our attention be both above and below state-to-state wars and international relations. Although war will never be far from our focus, our emphasis will be on those forms of violence that are not reducible to the traditional notion of international conflict. Political theory will help us better understand violence; violence will help us better understand political theory.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.377. Rastafari in Baltimore and the Caribbean: Transnational Community Development in the Black World. 3 Credits.
This is an exploratory research lab course that examines Rastafari – a transnational movement with roots in the Caribbean and presence in Baltimore and DC. Students learn about the history, philosophy, and practices of the movement as well as its confrontations with racist systems of political and economic governance. Students are prepared to undertake research with the movement, which culminates in a week long immersion with the movement in Jamaica.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.378. The U.S. Supreme Court and Social Movements. 3 Credits.
This class explores the relationship between the U.S. Supreme Court and the social movements that have shaped or resisted its rulings. It examines both contemporary and historical cases of social movement influence on the development of constitutional law in areas including: civil rights, reproductive rights, rights to gun ownership, and debt relief. We will read Supreme Court opinions as well as scholarship in legal theory and movement politics. Throughout the class, we will ask whether and how grass-roots politics can drive constitutional change.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.379. Nationalism and the Politics of Identity. 3 Credits.
Nationalism ties powerful organizations to political mobilization, territory, and individual loyalty. Yet nationalism is typically studied in isolation from other social formations that depend upon organizational – individual linkages. Alternative types of identity category sometimes depend similarly upon organizations that collect and deploy resources, mobilize individuals, erect boundaries, and promote strong emotional connections among individuals as well as between individuals and institutions. In this class, we study classic and contemporary works on nationalism, drawn from multiple disciplinary and analytic traditions, in the comparative context of alternative forms of identity. The focus of the class will be primarily theoretical, with no regional or temporal limitations.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.384. Urban Politics. 3 Credits.
An analysis of public policy and policy-making for American Cities. Special attention will be given to the subject of urban crime and law enforcement, poverty and welfare, and intergovernmental relations. Cross-listed with Africana Studies
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.385. Urban Policy. 3 Credits.
An analysis of public policy and policy-making for American Cities. Special attention will be given to the subject of urban crime and law enforcement, poverty and welfare, and intergovernmental relations. Cross listed with Africana Studies.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.388. Race and the Politics of Memory. 3 Credits.
This is a writing intensive, advanced undergraduate political theory seminar. The course will examine the politics of memory: how power shapes what is available to be remembered, the timing and occasions of memory, who is allowed to remember, and the spaces inside of which remembrance takes place. Specifically, the seminar will explore how segregated memory enables racial segregation and racial inequality. Toward that end, we shall investigate political and theoretical interventions potentially equipped to contest contemporary forms of racial amnesia haunting what some have labeled a “post-truth” world.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.390. Race and American Democracy. 3 Credits.
While the United States has long been a democracy for white men, it has mostly been anything but democratic when seen through the eyes of Black Americans. But progress toward the expansion of democracy has occurred at a few times in American history. What made American democratization possible, and how might the United States again move toward more complete and inclusive democracy?
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.392. Introduction to Economic Development. 3 Credits.
Most wealthy countries are democracies, but not all democracies are wealthy—India, Costa Rica, and Mongolia are prominent examples. This course explores three fundamental questions: 1) What political institutions promote economic prosperity? 2) Under what conditions does democracy promote prosperity? 3) What are the mechanisms connecting political institutions and economic performance?
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.394. Comparative Politics of the Middle East and North Africa. 3 Credits.
This course examines the domestic, regional, and transnational politics of the Middle East and North Africa. The class is organized into three units. The first examines major armed conflicts—anti-colonial, intra-state, and inter-state—from 1948 through the 1990s. It uses these historical moments as windows onto key issues in Middle Eastern and North African political issues such as external intervention/occupation, human rights, sectarianism, social movements, and memory politics. Unit Two focuses on policy relevant issues such as democratization, minority populations, religion and politics, and gender. In Unit Three, students will explore the politics of the Arab Uprisings through critical reading and discussion of new (post-2011) scholarship on MENA states, organizations, and populations. Enrollment limited to Political Science and International Studies majors.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.397. The Politics of International Law. 3 Credits.
This course introduces students of politics to international law. We will explore historical roots and current problems, recognizing along the way persistent contestation over the participants, sources, purposes, and interests associated with international law. The course situates formal aspects of law—centered on international treaties, international organizations, the World Court (ICJ), and the International Criminal Court (ICC)—within a broader field of global governance consisting of treaty-based and customary law, states and transnational actors, centralized and decentralized forms of legal authority. We will place special emphasis on the significance of international law to colonialism, decolonization, and contemporary forms of imperialism, keeping in mind that the law has been experienced differently in the Global South and by actors not recognized as sovereign by states in positions of power. Students will be exposed to a range of approaches, including rational choice, various species of legalism, process-oriented theories, critical legal studies, and postcolonial critiques.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.398. Politics Of Good & Evil. 3 Credits.
The Politics of Good and Evil examines comparatively a series of classical myths and modern philosophies concerning the sources of evil, the nature of goodness and nobility, the relations of culture to politics, nature and the gods, the degree to which any metaphysic or theological faith is certain, and so on. It is a course in “elemental theory” in the sense that each text pursued challenges and disrupts others we read. Often the reader is disrupted existentially too, in ways that may spur new thought. A previous course in political theory or a theoretical course in the humanities is advised. A high tolerance for theory is essential. Texts on or by Sophocles, Job, Genesis ("J" version), Augustine, Voltaire, Nietzsche, James Baldwin, W. Connolly and Elizabeth Kolbert form the core of the class. Assignments: 1) One 12 page paper and a second 5-7 page paper, both anchored in the readings; 2) a class presentation on one text; 3) regular attendance and quality participation in class discussions.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.402. Environmental Racism. 3 Credits.
This course is an advanced undergraduate political theory seminar that examines the disproportionate impact of environmental destruction on racially stigmatized populations. Environmental racism has largely been understood in terms of environmental policy-making that discriminates against people of color, particularly with respect to the state-sanctioned siting of toxic waste facilities, the distribution of pollutants, food-deserts, and the exclusion of non-white peoples from leading positions in the environmental movement. In this seminar, we will explore environmental racism more broadly, pushing beyond its conventional, place-based understandings and approaching the corresponding logics that produce human disposability and environmental waste from the standpoint of both space and time. Examining colonial legacies of coding racial others in terms natural disasters, epidemics, infestations, non-human animals, and dirt, we shall investigate how the natural world is subjected to exploitation and domination in tandem with the subordination of racial subjects historically identified with nature and rendered expendable. In other words, we shall illuminate the logics of power through which race-making coincides with waste-making. Accordingly, we will explore political and theoretical challenges to environmental racism in multiple registers, such as those posed by Indigenous communities, decolonial thinkers and Afro-diasporic theories contesting the intersection of racial biopolitics and ecological crises.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
Writing Intensive
AS.190.403. Bureaucracy and the American Political Landscape. 3 Credits.
In this course, we will revisit canonical understandings of the American bureaucracy as a provider of public goods and as accountable to elected officials within a system of democratic governance. The course will examine the role and operation of the executive branch bureaucracy across key phases of American political development. In Part I: Expansion, we will examine the role of the bureaucracy in territorial consolidation and the overseas expansion of the American state. In Part II: Removals, we will examine the role of the bureaucracy in managing populations. In Part III: Surveillance, we will examine the role of the bureaucracy in monitoring and surveilling citizens and noncitizens alike.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.405. Food Politics. 3 Credits.
This course examines the politics of food at the local, national, and global level. Topics include the politics of agricultural subsidies, struggles over genetically modified foods, government efforts at improving food safety, and issues surrounding obesity and nutrition policy. Juniors, seniors, and graduate students only.
Prerequisite(s): A student who takes AS.190.223 (Understanding the Food System) cannot also enroll in this course.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.408. Sovereignty: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Issues. 3 Credits.
This seminar provides an in-depth exploration of the concept of sovereignty as the central organizing concept of international relations. Rather than taking it for granted as a framework that simply individuates state actors in international politics, we will explore the history of its emergence in colonial and imperial relations and trace its interactions with phenomena such as nationalism, globalization, territoriality, and intervention. The course is open to undergraduates with previous coursework in political science.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.411. The Politics of Political Surveillance. 3 Credits.
Mass political surveillance is a hallmark of modern life. All contemporary regimes practice some form of surveillance. Yet the politics of surveillance vary. This seminar investigates the technologies, purposes, and significance of political surveillance in the 20th century in different polities. We will explore perspectives on surveillance from various approaches—historical, sociological, anthropological, and in political science.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.413. Asian American Political Thought. 3 Credits.
Despite growing awareness in other subfields of political science of the importance of Asian Americans as a political constituency, Asian American political theory and thought has yet to be recognized. This course provides an opportunity to investigate and interrogate the possibility of a textual “tradition” of Asian American political thought, including writings by thinkers before the invention of “Asian American” as an analytic, political, and identity category. How do Asian American writers, thinkers, and activists conceive of core political concepts such as freedom, citizenship, inclusion, and justice in the face of longstanding historical injustices–ranging from legal and social exclusion to internment? How do Asian Americans understand, portray, and attempt to alter their social position and relation to state power? What tools of resistance were available to them, and how did they use those tools to negotiate and reconfigure central conceptual categories of political thought and politics? We will engage a wide-ranging group of Asian and Asian American writers as well as contemporary theorists, as well as a variety of genres.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.414. Frontiers of Empirical Political Science. 3 Credits.
This advanced level course is intended to help students understand the frontiers of empirical political science research – that is, research concerned with answering causal questions – as presented in recent books by (for the most part) junior scholars. The books represent the substantive and methodological pluralism of our field, with books coming from American, Comparative, IR, and Political Economy. We will give two weeks’ treatment to most books on the syllabus, spending the first week reading “motivating” or classic material that inspired the book project, as well a companion of a key methodological text that inspired the research design. Along with reading the materials that help to situate the book in larger debates in its subfield we will read the first several chapters of the book. In the second week of discussion we will read the second half of the book – the evidence chapters and the conclusion – and focus on understanding whether and how the evidence that is presented matches with the theoretical and empirical claims made in the book’s beginnings.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.415. Political Arts: Dada, Surrealism, and Societal Metamorphoses. 3 Credits.
In the years between World Wars I and II, a fascinating group of artists, manifesto-writers, performers, intellectuals, and poets, in Europe and the Caribbean, who were put off by conventional politics of the time, decided to pursue other means of societal transformation. This seminar explores the aims and tactics, and strengths and liabilities, of Dada and Surrealism, as it operated in Europe and the Americas in the years between the World Wars. We will also read texts and images from writers and artists influenced by Dada and Surrealism but applied to different historical and political contexts.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken AS.001.193 OR AS.190.613 are not eligible to take AS.190.415.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.420. From Polycrisis to Polytunity. 3 Credits.
Around the world, people speak of living through a “polycrisis”—a time when overlapping disruptions create fear and paralysis. In this course, Prof. Yuen Yuen Ang invites you to flip the script: from polycrisis to polytunity, seeing disruption as a portal to new possibilities. Polytunity opens into Ang’s broader paradigm, AIM (Adaptive, Inclusive, Moral) Political Economy, which builds on her earlier works (How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, China’s Gilded Age). Together we’ll explore AIM’s three pillars: Adaptive (systems not machine thinking), Inclusive (diverse pathways, not one template), and Moral (ideas are shaped by power and positionality)—and trace how they can inspire both new research agendas and real-world applications across a range of fields. We’ll see how Ang’s “ideational forest” grows from roots to canopy, offering a generative compass for navigating our age of disruption.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Ethics and Foundations (FA5),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.190.421. Violence: State and Society. 3 Credits.
This course will examine violence that occurs mainly within the territory of nominally sovereign states. We will focus on violence as an object of study in its own right. For the most part, we will look at violence as a dependent variable, though in some instances it will function as an independent variable, a mechanism, or an equilibrium. We will ask why violence starts, how it “works” or fails to work, why it takes place in some locations and not others, why violence take specific forms (e.g., insurgency, terrorism, civilian victimization, etc.), what explains its magnitude (the number of victims), and what explains targeting (the type or identity of victims).
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.423. Planetary Geopolitics. 3 Credits.
With the tools of geopolitics, course explores political debates over globalization of machine civilization and changes in scope and pace, space and place, and role of nature in human affairs.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.424. Theories of Comparative Politics. 3 Credits.
This seminar is intended for two types of student: a) graduate students planning to take the comprehensive exam in comparative politics, either as a major or as a minor; and b) advanced undergraduates who want to get a good sense of what graduate training in political science is about. In addition to exploring central methodological debates and analytic approaches, the seminar reviews the literature on state-society relations, political and economic development, social movements, nationalism, revolutions, formal and informal political institutions, and regime durability vs. transition.
Prerequisite(s): Students who are enrolled in, or have already taken AS.190.625, are not eligible to take AS.190.424.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.425. The New Deal and American Politics. 3 Credits.
This seminar explores how the New Deal, the fundamental moment in the post-Civil War United States, has structured politics and government across a variety of domains ever since. Topics include presidential leadership, executive power, political parties, labor, race, and the welfare state.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.426. Time and Politics. 3 Credits.
This undergraduate seminar explores the philosophical concept of time as it relates to contemporary theories of politics. We will read mainly a selection of works form the philosophical canon (Plato, Descartes, Kant, Heidegger, Derrida, Ricoeur) along with works from contemporary theorists (Brown, Connolly, Grosz, Honig, Rancière).
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.427. Political Economy of Japan and Korea. 3 Credits.
This upper-level seminar examines some of the major debates and issues of postwar Japanese and South Korean political economy. Topics include nationalism, gender politics, civil society, immigration, and US-Japan-South Korea trilateral relations.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.428. Hobbes and Spinoza. 3 Credits.
A close reading of Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and Ethics by Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), with consideration of important commentaries on these works. What conceptions of the human being, nature, reason, God, and freedom are defended and affirmed by Hobbes and Spinoza? What rhetorical strategies accompany their theories of self, ethics, social life?
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken AS.190.628 are not eligible to take AS.190.428.
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.429. Politics of the Market Economy. 3 Credits.
Although “the market” is conventionally understood as separate from “politics”, the modern market economy did not arise in a political vacuum. In fact, the very separation between the economy and politics is itself the product of a politically potent set of ideas. This course is an upper-division reading seminar on the origins and evolution of the modern market economy. Readings will include Smith, Marx, Weber, Polanyi, Keynes, Hayek, Friedman, Becker, and Foucault. Recommended course background: Introduction to comparative politics OR any college-level course in social or political theory.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.430. Surveys and Survey Experiments. 3 Credits.
This course is a combined upper-level undergraduate and graduate-level introduction to the uses of surveys in the social sciences, with examples primarily drawn from political science. We will examine when and why social scientists choose to use survey methods, discuss questionnaire design and sampling considerations, learn the basics of interpreting survey results, and cover the logic of survey experiments. Throughout the course, we will read and discuss substantive research that uses these methods. This course is a complement (not a substitute) to statistical training. There is no statistical pre-requisite, and students may take the course as a stand-alone methods offering to improve their understanding of literature that uses survey methods. Students who wish to use survey methods in their own projects should also take a separate course on statistical methods, either before, after, or concurrently with this course.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.432. Afropessimism. 3 Credits.
Afropessimism represents a critical body of thought that takes as its fundamental premises two ideas, the Black is the Slave, and in order to end that ontological condition the world must end. In this course, we will interrogate the key readings associated with this body of thought as well as responses.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.437. Race and Ethnic Politics in the United States. 3 Credits.
Race has been and continues to be centrally important to American political life and development. In this course, we will engage with the major debates around racial politics in the United States, with a substantial focus on how policies and practices of citizenship, immigration law, social provision, and criminal justice policy shaped and continue to shape racial formation, group-based identities, and group position; debates around the content and meaning of political representation and the responsiveness of the political system to American minority groups; debates about how racial prejudice has shifted and its importance in understanding American political behavior; the prospects for contestation or coalitions among groups; the “struggle with difference” within groups as they deal with the interplay of race and class, citizenship status, and issues that disproportionately affect a subset of their members; and debates about how new groups and issues are reshaping the meaning and practice of race in the United States.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.438. Violence and Politics. 3 Credits.
This seminar will address the role of violence–both domestic and international–in political life. Though most claim to abhor violence, since the advent of recorded history, violence and politics have been intimately related. States practice violence against internal and external foes. Political dissidents engage in violence against states. Competing political forces inflict violence upon one another. Writing in 1924, Winston Churchill declared–and not without reason–that, "The story of the human race is war." Indeed, violence and the threat of violence are the most potent forces in political life. It is, to be sure, often averred that problems can never truly be solved by the use of force. Violence, the saying goes, is not the answer. This adage certainly appeals to our moral sensibilities. But whether or not violence is the answer presumably depends upon the question being asked. For better or worse, it is violence that usually provides the most definitive answers to three of the major questions of political life--statehood, territoriality and power. Violent struggle, in the form of war, revolution, civil war, terrorism and the like, more than any other immediate factor, determines what states will exist and their relative power, what territories they will occupy, and which groups will and will not exercise power within them. Course is open to juniors and seniors.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.439. The American State from Above and Below. 3 Credits.
Despite its well-known idiosyncrasies, the American state has consistently wielded substantial power, and many Americans have long experienced the state’s power as potent, omnipresent, and structuring their lives in important ways. This research-based course will examine theories of the state and political authority both from “above” - considering the political sources of both the American state’s power and its limitations - and from “below,” using people’s own narratives and political formations to explore how Americans develop knowledge about the state, confront and resist the state’s power, and expand or shift its distribution of ‘public’ goods. How do people understand the state, theorize its operations and possibilities, deploy it, and sometimes build parallel structures of provision and governance? We explore several cases of when people marginalized by race, class, gender, or precarious legal standing organized deep challenges to state power and transformed state authority. Considering the state as both formal structure and frame for everyday experience can offer a fresh perspective on contemporary democratic challenges and political struggles. Students will conduct original research using archives and sources like the American Prison Writing Archive, oral history archives like the Ralph Bunche collection and HistoryMakers collection, and archival sources in the History Vault such as the Kerner Commission interviews. The course is appropriate for advanced undergraduates (juniors and seniors), preferably having taken courses in political science or related coursework, and graduate students in political science, history, and sociology.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.440. European Politics in Comparative Perspective. 3 Credits.
Despite the periodic resurgence of war on its periphery, Europe can easily appear as a pacified and relatively boring continent. This course will question this stereotype through an examination of European politics in historical and cross-national perspective. We will discuss central concepts that comparative politics scholars mobilize in the study of European politics across time and space. Topics will include: political, legal, and economic governance; the evolution of democracy, the welfare state, partisan politics, citizenship, and identities; European integration and globalization.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.443. Politics of Outer Space. 3 Credits.
Humans have long dreamed of leaving Earth and venturing into the vastness of cosmic outer space. During the 20th century space travel became a real possibility, stimulating an extraordinary outpouring of visionary space projects. Space Expansionists claim these projects are increasingly feasible and desirable. Advocates assert that human expansion into space will fundamentally improve the human situation by enabling perennial human goals (improved security from violence, expanded and protected habitat, and ultimately survival of the human species). In the first steps beyond the atmosphere, a variety of military, scientific, and utilitarian activities have been conducted. The history of space activities has been marked by sudden and unexpected spurts of activity, followed by periods of relative stagnation. Recent developments point to another period of rapid expansion: renewed military tensions, new space private sector initiatives, renewed interest in Luna, and growing efforts to divert and mine asteroids. A core part of the arguments for the desirability of space expansion are geopolitical in that they claim broadly political effects will result from humans interacting with extraterrestrial material environments composed of particular combinations geographies and human-built artifacts. Space expansionist arguments are advanced through analogies to Earth geographies (e.g. space is an ocean), as well as large-scale historical trends and patterns. Space expansion is advanced as the opening of a new frontier, reversing the contemporary global closure brought about by rising levels of interdependence. The goal of space expansionists is to make humanity a multi-world species, and it is anticipated that biological species radiation will occur. This course explores the causes and consequences of space activity; how space activities reflect and effect world political order; and whether human expansion into space is desirable, as its fervent advocates believe.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.444. Comparative Politics. 3 Credits.
This course offers a graduate-level introduction to the field of comparative politics, focusing on the substantive questions that drive contemporary research. Issues will include: state formation and state capacity; regime typology, democratization, and democratic backsliding; party systems and political behavior; political economy and economic development; racial, ethnic, and religious politics; and revolutions and political violence. Readings include both classic and recent works, selected to help students both prepare for major or minor comprehensive exams and frame their own research projects.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.449. War and Society in World Politics. 3 Credits.
This course is an advanced introduction to war in the modern world, encompassing its political, social, cultural and ecological dimensions. It adopts a “war and society” approach in that it covers the ways in which society shapes war and, in turn, how war shapes society. It situates “war and society” in an historically evolving global context, attending to the nature of war in both the core and the periphery of world politics. Topics include the totalization and industrialization of war; civil-military relations; modernity, reason and war; “small war”; and race, culture and war.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.451. Geopolitics. 3 Credits.
Intensive exploration of theories of how geography, ecology, and technology shape political orders. Case studies of ancient, early modern, global, and contemporary topics, including European ascent, industrial revolution, tropics and North South divide, climate change, geo-engineering and global commons (oceans, atmosphere and orbital space
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.454. Nuclear Weapons and World Politics. 3 Credits.
Over the seven decades since their invention, nuclear weapons have been a central focus in international politics. This course explores the fundamental question: what political arrangements ensure security from nuclear weapons? The debate has evolved through three stages. Initially (1945-1960), radical political changes were anticipated due to the perceived imminent threat of nuclear war. In the second stage (1960-1990), deterrence became a key concept, but opinions differed on the necessary conditions for it. The end of the Cold War marked an unexpected shift. In the third stage (1990-present), concerns about proliferation and terrorism emerged, leading to disagreements on preventive/pre-emptive actions versus arms control and disarmament. Realist international theories have been conflicted throughout these stages, with ongoing debates on arms control, public involvement, and the impact of nuclear security measures on liberal democratic governments.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken AS.190.416 are not eligible to take AS.190.454.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.455. Social Movements in U.S. Politics. 3 Credits.
This seminar explores social movements across American history, placing them in the broad context of American political development. Cases include abolition, temperance, women’s suffrage, the Second Ku Klux Klan, labor, civil rights, feminism, gun rights, Black Lives Matter, and MAGA. As we situate these movements, we seek to explore similarities and dissimilarities in their strategies and impacts. Requirements include a term paper.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.456. Humanitarianism and World Politics. 3 Credits.
Humanitarianism has become a pervasive form of moral and political action in world politics. Over the course of the twentieth century and beyond, humanitarian logics infused the conduct of war and informed global governance in many areas—from refugee relief and post-conflict reconstruction, to peacekeeping and development, to migration, ecological security, and recovery from natural disasters. And yet, while often celebrated as an achievement, humanitarianism involves ambiguities, contradictions, and pathologies demanding critical scrutiny. This seminar aims, first, to interrogate critically the history of humanitarian practices and, second, to refine and revise concepts used to study and evaluate those practices. We pursue these aims in part with an eye to understanding mutations of humanitarian politics accompanying contemporary challenges to the post-WWII liberal international order. Topics include: (1) the invention of “humanity” as an idea/ideal; (2)humanitarianism, war and empire; (3) varities of humanitarianism; (4) humanitarian violence; (5) humanitarian expertise and institutions; (6) humanitarianism, media, and technology;
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken or are enrolled in AS.190.656 are not eligible to take AS.190.456.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.457. Sovereignty, the State, and War in International Politics. 3 Credits.
We are used to thinking of sovereignty, the state, and war as fairly self-evident concepts and as the bedrock of so much work, not only in academic international relations, but also in policy discourse. It seems straightforward that sovereign states wage war, and war in turn may make or break states. Under conditions of rapidly advancing globalization, however, the relationship of these concepts is anything but straightforward. This class builds on historical investigations into state formation, the relationship of the military instrument to the state, the progressive globalization of the defense industrial base, the rapidly changing practices of security under technical innovation, and related phenomena to question notions of state and security and to better understand the past and present fault lines of conflict. This is a graduate course that welcomes advanced undergraduates with previous international relations coursework at instructor’s discretion.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.458. Global climate Politics: Net-Zero Industrial Policy and World Order. 3 Credits.
This course will survey the history of geopolitics and green industrial from China’s wind and solar push in the 1990s to the Inflation Reduction Act and beyond. We will seek to understand the determinants of industrial policy, best practices for industrial policy, and the effects of industrial policy on climate politics. The lens of geopolitics and industrial policy provides a unique avenue to understand world order. Through this lens, we will see how energy systems and technology competition animate and structure global politics.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken or are enrolled in AS.190.658 are not eligible to take AS.190.458.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.459. Money and Sovereignty. 3 Credits.
The power to coin money was historically central to the formation of sovereign states. Yet the relationship between money and sovereignty has considerably evolved over time. First, the emergence of nation-states and of popular sovereignty meant that money was no longer primarily a state and elite concern, but also increasingly a matter of everyday life and mass politics. Second, the increasing integration and financialization of the world economy produced new challenges for sovereignty. We will discuss historical and social science scholarship that address these historical trends and the politics of money and sovereignty today. Topics will include: capitalism, public budgets and debts, central banks, populism, democracy, financialization, international integration.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.467. Theories of Justice. 3 Credits.
This course will explore the classic question, “What is justice?” While we will entertain several different answers to the question, the course will focus on how these answers speak to and past one another, illuminating contemporary quandaries related to intergenerational justice, global justice, and the justice of resistance. Guided by Nietzsche, we will read texts by authors including, among others, Plato, Kant, Bentham, Marx, Rawls, Nozick, and West. Over the course of the semester, students will write three papers. There will also be a final exam.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.468. Federalism, Sovereignty, and The State. 3 Credits.
Federalism has become an increasingly widespread constitutional form in the world — in America, but also in Europe, the "cradle of the nation-state," and on other continents. While it typically resolves political problems, it also raises many questions about the nature of states and of sovereignty. This course will discuss scholarship that addresses federalism, sovereignty, and the state, both in contemporary politics and in historical perspective.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.469. White Supremacy. 3 Credits.
This is a writing intensive, advanced undergraduate political theory seminar on racial formation. Specifically, the course examines white supremacy in politics and theory. We shall take a critical-historical approach to theorize the continuities and changes in whiteness over time. For instance, what power hierarchies and political goals has white identity been fashioned to advance historically? By studying whiteness as race---and not the absence thereof--we will take up questions of how to best understand and contest contemporary manifestations of white supremacy in environmental racism, imperialism, discourses of race war and replacement theory, and ongoing neo-colonial, biopolitical and death-dealing necropolitical projects. Building on this work, we will investigate the white disavowal of existential crises of climate change and pandemic threats within apocalyptic modes of whiteness---ways of thinking and acting where the end of white supremacy is imagined and lived as the real end of the world.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.470. States and Democracy. 3 Credits.
The focus of the seminar is on the formation and transformation sates and regimes. The perspective is both historical and comparative, covering Western Europe, Latin America, Africa and the US as a “non exceptional” case. This is fundamentally a Comparative Politics course, but APD students will almost certainly benefit from it.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.471. The University and Society. 3 Credits.
In the 20th century, American universities became the envy of the world, leading in most categories of scholarly productivity and attracting students from every nation. In recent years, though, American higher education has come to face a number of challenges including rapidly rising costs, administrative bloat, corporatization and moocification. We will examine the problems and promises of American higher education, the political struggles within the university and the place of the university in the larger society. Upper classes and Grad Students only.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.473. Political Polarization. 3 Credits.
The American constitutional order, which was designed to operate without political parties, now has parties as divided as any in the democratic world. This course will examine explanations of how this happened, the consequences of party polarization for public policy and governance, and what if anything should be done about it.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.474. Philosophy of Law. 3 Credits.
The philosophy of law or jurisprudence investigates the nature of law and what makes law, as it were, law. This course will examine some of the ways in which law has been defined and understood. It will also consider how law is distinguished from other systems of norms and values, such as morality, and how law is distinguished from other aspects of government, such as politics. In addition, the course will introduce students to discussions of legal reasoning and interpretation. To complete the course, students will be required to participate in class discussion, take two exams, and write a paper.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.475. America in Comparative and International Perspective. 3 Credits.
Over the last quarter millennium, the United States of America has been the most successful state in world politics. It has had the world’s largest economy since 1870, and was on the winning side of the three great world struggles of the 20th century. During these struggles, the fate of liberal capitalist democracy in the world has been closely connected with the rise and success of the USA. This course examines the rise and impacts of the USA in comparative and international perspective. What factors account for the success of the USA during the late modern era? How has the rise and influence of the USA shaped world politics? The course focuses on the causes, consequences and possible alternatives of three founding moments (1776-88, 1861-67 and 1933-36), the role of wars against illiberal adversaries in strengthening American liberal national identity, the ways in which the internal logics of the Philadelphian states-union (1787-1861) and the liberal international order among advanced industrial democracies (1945-) as alternatives to Westphalian state-systems, the role and consequences of the US as an anti-imperial power, and the internal dual between liberal America dedicated to the Founding principles and an ‘alt-America’ of slavery and white supremacy.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.476. Frantz Fanon's Global Politics: Racism, Madness, and Colonialism. 3 Credits.
“The abnormal is he who demands, appeals, and begs” – Frantz Fanon. This course explores the writings and politics of Frantz Fanon, the radical anti-colonial author, psychiatrist, diplomat, and revolutionary who inspired decolonial and anti-racist struggles across the globe. We will situate Fanon’s writings in the global historical context of decolonization, and ask how they can illuminate contemporary questions of madness, racism, fascism, and empire. In addition to reading Fanon’s work, we will trace his influence on radical social movements, political thought, and global politics, and explore the limits and promises of culture, art, and film for social transformation.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.478. Catastrophic and Existential Risks & World Orders. 3 Credits.
This course focuses on the politics of emerging natural and technogenic catastrophic and existential risks (CAER). The emergence and acceleration of machine-based civilization devoted to the progressive development of science-based technology has produced a fundamentally novel human situation, and the emergence of a horizon of potential disasters, catastrophes and threats to human existence. Some threats, such as super-volcanoes and asteroidal collisions, have purely natural origins. Others, such as nuclear war, bioweapons, nanotechnology, artificial superintelligence, totalitarian government and climate change are anthropogenic. Some, such as geo-engineering, space colonization and asteroidal diversion, appear to be solutions, but may also pose severe, but under-appreciated, threats. International theory is largely unprepared to conceptualize such threats, or suitable solutions to them. Many of the novel technologies have both civil and military applications. Some are increasingly accessible to small non-state actors. Foresight capacities to anticipate negative consequences of new technologies are severely limited, and powerful interests are deeply committed to their largely unhindered development. Several of these technologies may enable the establishment of highly hierarchical world government, and regulatory regimes capable of restraining them may require world government to be effective. The globally hegemonic ideology of Baconian Promethean modernism is strongly committed to unlimited scientific and technological development, making efforts to restrain, regulate or relinquish such technologies very difficult. This course focuses on the contours of these threats, the ways in which they are activated by different political factors, the features of regimes necessary to restrain them, and the implications for world order of these threats and responses to them.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.480. Democracy and Institutional Anxiety across the Political Spectrum. 3 Credits.
Institutions are a ubiquitous part of political life. Much of the work of political life, both inside and outside government, is only possible through institutions - arrangements of power that provide continuity over time, have a relatively stable mission, jurisdiction and organizational structure. Democracy itself is dependent upon - but perhaps also constrained by - institutions. Institutions are subjects of profound anxiety, across the political spectrum, albeit for different reasons. Those anxieties come from fears about hierarchy, elite capture, illegitimacy, inflexibility, gerontocracy and ineffectiveness. This class will investigate the reasons for the creation and maintenance of institutions, the sources of institutional anxiety, and the challenges that this anxiety creates for the effective, responsible and democratic exercise of power
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.481. Student Activism: Histories, Theories, Practices. 3 Credits.
This course takes a critical look at the histories, theories, and practices of student activism. The course material addresses questions such as: what explains movement success and failure in different contexts? What is the connection between community organizing and campus activism? How and why do non-violent protests turn violent? And what differences, if any, obtain between left and right leaning forms of student protest?
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.489. Marxisms: Ecological, Feminist, Racial, and Latin American Approaches to Historical Materialism. 3 Credits.
This seminar explores the intellectual origins and ongoing intellectual productivity of the historical materialist account of political economy inaugurated with Karl Marx. It considers, in particular, how fatal couplings between power and difference are leveraged by capitalism as a tool of accumulation. Women’s labor and social reproduction, nature’s availability for mastery and the destructive exploitation of land and natural resources, racial inferiority and exploitative conditions of labor, and Global South peoples conscription into hyper-exploitative labor. The seminar will explore and interrogate the political dimensions of these transformations: how are relationships of political rule entangled with capitalist priorities of accumulation and which peoples/political subjects get to do the ruling and why? How did patriarchal and racial arrangements came to be, how do they relate to the production of value, and how are they sustained politically today? How do historical political transformations (including formal decolonization, democratic transitions, and the onset of free trade and structural adjustment, among others) inaugurate new forms of accumulation and how do these forms and their politics take different shape in the North and the Global South? A sample of the readings include Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, W. E. B. Du Bois, Silvia Federici, Andreas Malm, Ruy Mauro Marini, and others.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.494. Planetary Geo-Technics, Utopian-Dystopian Futurism & Materialist World Order Theories. 3 Credits.
There is a widespread recognition that the prospects for contemporary civilization and humanity are shadowed by a range of catastrophic and existential threats, a major subset of which are anthropogenic and technogenic in character. (In the simplest terms these threats arise from the collision between scientific-technological modernity and the geography of the planet Earth.) At the same time, the two most powerful institutional complexes on the planet (market capitalism and the war state system) are committed to further rapidly advancing technology for power and plenty, and anticipate further great elevations of the human estate. Over the last long century, a great debate has emerged, across many disciplines, on the ‘terrapolitan question’(TQ): given the new and prospective material contexts for human agency, what world orders are needed to assure human survival, prosperity and freedom? Practical agency responsive to the new horizon of threat and benefit depends upon getting an adequate answer to this question.Any theory capable of illuminating these realities and choices, and answering the TQ, must be significantly materialist in character. Explicitly materialist theories are very old, and very diverse, and material factors appear in virtually every body of thought, yet are still significantly underdeveloped in contemporary international and world order theory.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.190.497. Modern Political Thought. 3 Credits.
This course is a survey of modern political thought for advanced undergraduate students and graduate students. Its purpose is to (1) introduce some of the most significant texts in early modern European political theory, (2) survey a selection of the most important recent scholarly studies of these sources, and (3) develop theoretical and methodological skills at analyzing and interpreting the texts and the scholarship they have inspired.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.498. Thesis Colloquium. 3 Credits.
Open to and required for Political Science majors writing a thesis. International Studies majors writing a senior thesis under the supervision of a Political Science Department faculty member may also enroll. Topics include: research design, literature review, evidence collection and approaches to analysis of evidence, and the writing process. The course lays the groundwork for completing the thesis in the second semester under the direction of the faculty thesis supervisor. Students are expected to have decided on a research topic and arranged for a faculty thesis supervisor prior to the start of the semester. Seniors. Under special circumstances, juniors will be allowed to enroll. Enrollment limit: 15.
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.499. Senior Thesis. 3 Credits.
Seniors also have the opportunity to write a senior research thesis. To be eligible to write this thesis, students must identify a faculty sponsor who will supervise the project.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
Writing Intensive
AS.190.501. Internship-Political Science. 1 Credit.
Internships provide work experience that relates to student’s academic project.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.190.502. Political Science Internship. 1 Credit.
Internships provide work experience that relates to student’s academic project.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.190.504. Internship-International Relations. 1 Credit.
Internships provide work experience that relates to student’s academic project.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.190.535. Independent Study - Freshmen. 3 Credits.
Independent Studies allow students to pursue advanced research under the supervision of a faculty member.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.190.536. Independent Study-Freshmen. 1 - 3 Credits.
Independent Studies allow students to pursue advanced research under the supervision of a faculty member.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.190.537. Independent Study-Sophomores. 3 Credits.
Independent Studies allow students to pursue advanced research under the supervision of a faculty member.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.190.538. Independent Study-Sophomores. 1 - 3 Credits.
Independent Studies allow students to pursue advanced research under the supervision of a faculty member.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.190.539. Independent Study-Juniors. 1 - 3 Credits.
Independent Studies allow students to pursue advanced research under the supervision of a faculty member.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.190.540. Independent Study-Juniors. 1 - 3 Credits.
Independent Studies allow students to pursue advanced research under the supervision of a faculty member.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.190.541. Independent Study-Seniors. 3 Credits.
Independent Studies allow students to pursue advanced research under the supervision of a faculty member.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.190.543. Independent Research. 3 Credits.
Independent Research allows students to do a course’s worth of advanced research under the supervision of a faculty member.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.190.544. Independent Research. 1 - 3 Credits.
Independent Research allows students to do a course’s worth of advanced research under the supervision of a faculty member.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.190.592. Summer Internship. 1 Credit.
Internships provide work experience that relates to student’s academic project.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.190.598. Independent Study. 3 Credits.
Independent Studies allow students to pursue advanced research under the supervision of a faculty member.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.190.599. Research - Summer. 1 - 3 Credits.
Independent Research allows students to do a course’s worth of advanced research under the supervision of a faculty member.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
AS.190.601. Qualitative Research. 3 Credits.
This course introduces students to qualitative research design, data generation practices, and analysis. The class first provides a basic grounding in core concepts related to ethics, reflexivity/positionality, research siting/casing, and sampling. It then familiarizes students with basic data generation methods including interviewing, taking field notes, participant observation & ethnography, participatory action, and archival work. The class then explores different approaches to analysis, including discourse and content analysis, process tracing, and qualitative social network analysis. Instruction covers positivist, interpretivist, and critical approaches.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.602. Bureaucracy and the American Political Landscape. 3 Credits.
In this course, we will revisit canonical understandings of the American bureaucracy as a provider of public goods and as accountable to elected officials within a system of democratic governance. The course will examine the role and operation of the executive branch bureaucracy across key phases of American political development. In Part I: Expansion, we will examine the role of the bureaucracy in territorial consolidation and the overseas expansion of the American state. In Part II: Removals, we will examine the role of the bureaucracy in managing populations. In Part III: Surveillance, we will examine the role of the bureaucracy in monitoring and surveilling citizens and noncitizens alike.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.603. Reading Seminar: Marx's "Second Project of Critique". 2 Credits.
This is a directed readings graduate course that takes the form of a reading seminar. Our aim is to read carefully and understand deeply what Michael Heinrich calls Marx’s “second project of critique”; begun in 1863–64 and often referred to by the name “Capital,” this project remains entangled with but must be understood as separate from the “critique of political economy.” It also remains deeply misunderstood, and particularly hard to grasp if one approaches it by starting with chapter one, volume 1, of Capital (especially as interpreted through traditional Marxism). Hence our distinct and distinctive tack.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.605. Enviromental racism. 3 Credits.
Environmental racism has largely been understood in terms of environmental policy-making that discriminates against people of color, particularly with respect to the state-sanctioned siting of toxic waste facilities, the distribution of pollutants, food-deserts, and the exclusion of non-white peoples from leading positions in the environmental movement. This graduate seminar explores environmental racism more broadly, pushing beyond its conventional, place-based understandings and approaching the corresponding logics that produce human disposability and environmental waste from the standpoint of both space and time. Examining colonial legacies of coding racial others in terms natural disasters, epidemics, infestations, non-human animals and dirt, we shall investigate how the natural world is subjected to exploitation and domination in tandem with the subordination of racial subjects historically identified with nature and rendered expendable. In other words, we shall illuminate the logics of power through which race-making coincides with waste-making. Accordingly, we will explore political and theoretical challenges to environmental racism in multiple registers; such as those posed by indigenous studies, decolonial thinkers and Afro-diasporic theories contesting the intersection of racial biopolitics, ecological crises and racial capitalism in an era of proliferating human disposability. Authors considered may include; Mbembe, Du Bois, Hage, Glissant, Césaire, Wynter & Chakrabarty.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.609. Indigenous Political Theory. 3 Credits.
This graduate seminar will examine a range of Indigenous political theorists and critics of settler colonialism. In so doing, we will interrogate the role of liberal Anglo-centrism in contested theories and practices of sovereignty, property rights, freedom, equality, race, sexuality and nature. Likewise, we will investigate the contention that settler colonialism is acquisitive of territory in perpetuity, as opposed to being a moment in history, in order to assess the enduring political and theoretical impact of colonial legacies. Importantly, we shall explore how the relays between Indigenous cosmologies and temporalities shape theories and practices of resistance, reason, identity and political imagination.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken AS.190.648 - Indigenous Political Theory - are not eligible to take AS.190.609 - Indigenous Political Theory
AS.190.610. Process Philosophies and Political Manifestos. 3 Credits.
What do the process philosophies of Bergson, Whitehead and Daoism have to say to political manifestos advanced by writers such as Marx and Engels, Naomi Klein, Hardt and Negri, Dziga Vertov, Haitian and French revolutionaries, Folco Portinari. How, in turn, can the latter illuminate, deform, or inform them? The readings in this seminar bounce back and forth between the cosmic politics of process philosophy and a variety of short manifestos designed to speak to the vicissitudes of today.
AS.190.614. Frontiers of Empirical Political Science. 3 Credits.
This advanced level course is intended to help students understand the frontiers of empirical political science research – that is, research concerned with answering causal questions – as presented in recent books by (for the most part) junior scholars. The books represent the substantive and methodological pluralism of our field, with books coming from American, Comparative, IR, and Political Economy. We will give two weeks’ treatment to most books on the syllabus, spending the first week reading “motivating” or classic material that inspired the book project, as well a companion of a key methodological text that inspired the research design. Along with reading the materials that help to situate the book in larger debates in its subfield we will read the first several chapters of the book. In the second week of discussion we will read the second half of the book – the evidence chapters and the conclusion – and focus on understanding whether and how the evidence that is presented matches with the theoretical and empirical claims made in the book’s beginnings.
AS.190.615. War and Society in World Politics. 3 Credits.
This course is an advanced introduction to war in the modern world, encompassing its political, social, cultural and ecological dimensions. It adopts a “war and society” approach in that it covers the ways in which society shapes war and, in turn, how war shapes society. It situates “war and society” in an historically evolving global context, attending to the nature of war in both the core and the periphery of world politics. Topics include the totalization and industrialization of war; civil-military relations; modernity, reason and war; “small war”; and race, culture and war.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.616. American Political Development. 3 Credits.
An examination of state-building and nation-building throughout American political history. (AP)
AS.190.619. Nature, Climate, Civilization. 3 Credits.
A course designed to rework embedded images of nature, climate and civilization by rethinking how each actuality folds into, supports, and disrupts the others in multiform ways. Recent critiques of the very ideas of “nature” and “civilization” exposed how those western practices carried imperialism and racism. But those who then dropped, rather than reworking, the two concepts first contributed to the cultural opacity of climate change rumbling beneath their feet and may underestimate how several key issues are densely interwoven today. It is thus timely to rethink the three actualities together. The course may include texts from Rousseau, Freud, Nietzsche, Serres, Deleuze & Guattari, and Hanson & de Castro.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.621. Free Speech and The Law in Comparative Perspective. 3 Credits.
This class explores the ideas and legal doctrines that define the freedom of speech. We will examine the free speech jurispurdence of the U.S. in comparison to that of other system, particularly the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and the Supreme Court of Canada.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken AS.190.366 are not eligible to take AS.190.621.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.622. Critical Infrastructure. 3 Credits.
As Lauren Berlant notes, any fantasies of moving unimpeded in the world is shattered when we find ourselves unavoidably in relation to one another, entangled with one another’s everyday life. Broadly construed, ‘infrastructure’ is the amorphous and dynamic web of elements that governs the way we navigate this condition; it is the tissue that connects places, bodies, emotions, and communities. As such, it constitutes much of what makes our lives livable and/or unbearable. This seminar explores the ways in which a capaciously interpreted concept of infrastructure(s): mediates social life; reflects, asserts, and reifies power relations; and reproduces, amplifies, or mitigates conditions of inequality and violence. We will critically analyze physical, social, and personal infrastructures and reflect on their interconnected relations. We will also speculatively theorize the construction of ‘counter-infrastructures’ that might rework these ambivalent conditions of attachment and violence. Concepts to be considered will include redlining, bike paths, housing, libraries, parks, transit, architecture, biopolitics, mutual aid, care of the self, and mindfulness.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
Writing Intensive
AS.190.624. The Administrative State in Crisis. 3 Credits.
The graduate seminar examines the waxing and waning power of the administrative state in a comparative context (including the United States). The course considers the forging of bureaucratic authority, the rise of independent regulators, and the emergence of private-public partnerships, and how the current moment of globalization, populism, and slow growth has placed these arrangements under enormous pressure. Regulatory capture, procedural fetishism, cronyism, turf wars, and agency collapse will feature prominently. The second part of the course will bring in guests (section chiefs, program directors, and political appointees) from various government departments to provide their own perspectives on governance from the ground-up.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.625. Theories of Comparative Politics. 3 Credits.
This seminar is intended for two types of student: a) graduate students planning to take the comprehensive exam in comparative politics, either as a major or as a minor; and b) advanced undergraduates who want to get a good sense of what graduate training in political science is about. In addition to exploring central methodological debates and analytic approaches, the seminar reviews the literature on state-society relations, political and economic development, social movements, nationalism, revolutions, formal and informal political institutions, and regime durability vs. transition.
Prerequisite(s): Students who are currently enrolled in, or have already taken AS.190.424, are not eligible to take AS.190.625.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.626. Quantitative Methods for the Study of Politics. 3 Credits.
This course is intended as Ph.D.-level introduction to applied statistics, with a focus on the identification of causal effects in the tradition of the Neyman/Rubin potential outcomes framework. Prior coursework in applied statistics or quantitative methods will be useful but is not required. Upon completion of the course, students will be in a position to understand and critically assess scholarship that uses instrumental variables, difference-in-differences, regression discontinuity, and other quasi- and natural-experimental research designs. Formal mathematical proof will be kept to a minimum. Students will be asked to adapt existing code and write some of their own code in R.
AS.190.629. American Racial Politics. 3 Credits.
Race is not a biological fact but rather a social construction. However, it is a social construction with very real consequences. Definitions of citizenship, allocation of state resources, attitudes about government and government policy, the creation of government policy, all shape and are shaped by race and racial classifications. Serving as a critical corrective to American politics treatments that ignore race, this class will examine how race functions politically in the United States. While not required, some knowledge of statistics is helpful.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.630. Interpretation and Critique of Political Ideas. 3 Credits.
This is a graduate seminar on the interpretive and critical problems that arise when political theorists read and write about texts from long, long ago or far, far away. The first part of the course will consider approaches to the history of European political thought influenced by Marx, Foucault, Strauss, Skinner, and Arendt, amongst others. Readings will include both major methodological statements and examples of interpretive and critical scholarship undertaken by proponents of these different schools of thought. In the second part of the course, we will ask whether and how methods developed to analyze and learn from the history of political thought can be applied to the study of political thinkers who lived and wrote outside western Europe and North America. Major questions for consideration in both parts of the course include: Can old ideas help us solve problems arising in contemporary politics and political theory? What can we learn from intellectual traditions unconnected to our own? What do we have to do in order to understand the ideas contained within a given text? Do we have to understand a text for it to be useful to us?
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.632. The Development of American Political Institutions. 3 Credits.
This course explores institutional development in American national politics, from the Founding until the present. It traces parties, Congress, the presidency, bureaucracy, and courts, and also examines how those institutions have interacted with one another across American history. Throughout the course, we will consider how ideas, interests, procedures, and sequence together shape institutions as they collide and abrade over time. Finally, although it hardly covers the entire corpus across the subfield, the course is also designed to prepare students to sit for comprehensive examinations in American politics.
AS.190.634. Federalism, Sovereignty, and The State. 3 Credits.
Federalism has become an increasingly widespread constitutional form in the world — in America, but also in Europe, the "cradle of the nation-state," and on other continents. While it typically resolves political problems, it also raises many questions about the nature of states and of sovereignty. This course will discuss scholarship that addresses federalism, sovereignty, and the state, both in contemporary politics and in historical perspective.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.635. Surveys and Survey Experiments. 3 Credits.
This course is a combined graduate-level and upper-level undergraduate introduction to the uses of surveys in the social sciences, with examples primarily drawn from political science. We will examine when and why social scientists choose to use survey methods, discuss questionnaire design and sampling considerations, learn the basics of interpreting survey results, and cover the logic of survey experiments. Throughout the course, we will read and discuss substantive research that uses these methods. This course is a complement (not a substitute) to statistical training. There is no statistical pre-requisite, and students may take the course as a stand-alone methods offering to improve their understanding of literature that uses survey methods. Students who wish to use survey methods in their own projects should also take a separate course on statistical methods, either before, after, or concurrently with this course.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.636. Information/Knowledge/Power/Politics. 3 Credits.
Explores how information and knowledge flow through political/social/economic configurations, forming and reforming the politics of everyday engagements at different scales. Topics such as mis/disinformation, commodification of information, embodied information, surveillance, and cyber-mediated information provide the context for analyzing practices, power, agency, and ethics. Critical security studies scholarship provides an overarching template, and we will also draw theoretical insights from multiple disciplines. The format will combine elements of seminar and workshop, and the emphasis will be on collaborative participation in the research process.
AS.190.640. States and Democracy. 3 Credits.
The focus of the seminar is on the formation and transformation sates and regimes. The perspective is both historical and comparative, covering Western Europe, Latin America, Africa and the US as a “non exceptional” case. This is fundamentally a Comparative Politics course, but APD students will almost certainly benefit from it.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.642. Catastrophic and Existential Risks & World Orders. 3 Credits.
This course focuses on the politics of emerging natural and technogenic catastrophic and existential risks (CAER). The emergence and acceleration of machine-based civilization devoted to the progressive development of science-based technology has produced a fundamentally novel human situation, and the emergence of a horizon of potential disasters, catastrophes and threats to human existence. Some threats, such as super-volcanoes and asteroidal collisions, have purely natural origins. Others, such as nuclear war, bioweapons, nanotechnology, artificial superintelligence, totalitarian government and climate change are anthropogenic. Some, such as geo-engineering, space colonization and asteroidal diversion, appear to be solutions, but may also pose severe, but under-appreciated, threats. International theory is largely unprepared to conceptualize such threats, or suitable solutions to them. Many of the novel technologies have both civil and military applications. Some are increasingly accessible to small non-state actors. Foresight capacities to anticipate negative consequences of new technologies are severely limited, and powerful interests are deeply committed to their largely unhindered development. Several of these technologies may enable the establishment of highly hierarchical world government, and regulatory regimes capable of restraining them may require world government to be effective. The globally hegemonic ideology of Baconian Promethean modernism is strongly committed to unlimited scientific and technological development, making efforts to restrain, regulate or relinquish such technologies very difficult. This course focuses on the contours of these threats, the ways in which they are activated by different political factors, the features of regimes necessary to restrain them, and the implications for world order of these threats and responses to them.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.643. Comparative Politics. 3 Credits.
This course offers a graduate-level introduction to the field of comparative politics, focusing on the substantive questions that drive contemporary research. Issues will include: state formation and state capacity; regime typology, democratization, and democratic backsliding; party systems and political behavior; political economy and economic development; racial, ethnic, and religious politics; and revolutions and political violence. Readings include both classic and recent works, selected to help students both prepare for major or minor comprehensive exams and frame their own research projects.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.644. Directed Improvisation with AI. 3 Credits.
This exploratory PhD seminar invites students into the emerging space where human research practices and artificial intelligence begin to intersect. Framed by the concept of directed improvisation, the course treats the human researcher as a director—shaping the conditions and prompts under which AI, like a responsive actor, contributes to the creative process. AI is not approached as a shortcut, a threat, or mere tool, but as a partner in co-creation. The course covers the intellectual history of AI, contemporary debates, and practical applications of AI for research tasks. This is not a course with prepackaged answers. Our goal is to think and practice together, engaging in a range of novel questions that haven’t yet been fully named.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.648. Writing for Research. 3 Credits.
This course is designed to help graduate students in political science craft an original piece of high-quality writing. This class is open to students in their first, second, or third years of the graduate program. We will work on developing the skill of academic writing step by step, focusing first on the question of how to identify and articulate a good question, second on the skill of literature review, third on the art of theoretical engagement, and fourth on the presentation of evidence. During the semester, students may choose to turn a set of interests and questions into a prospectus draft. Alternatively, they may decide to use the class to turn a seminar paper into a dissertation chapter, or a revise a dissertation chapter into an article manuscript. Special sessions will bring other faculty to the class to talk about writing a dissertation and the peer-review process.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.652. Urban Politics. 3 Credits.
Over the past ten years the urban has become an increasingly important space with which to understand politics, whether examined through the subfields of international politics, comparative politics, political theory, or American politics. In this course we will examine the role the urban plays in producing politics at various scales, and simultaneously consider the urban as a particular byproduct of politics at various scales. How might we understand contemporary shifts in political economy through the urban? How does the urban become a particularly important site of racialization? Why have movements from Occupy Wall Street to Arab Spring begun in cities? What are the opportunities and challenges involved in comparing cities across national contexts? How have scholars used the city to theorize about politics more broadly? We will tackle these and other related questions in this course.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.653. Comparative Political Behavior. 3 Credits.
The course surveys major topics in political behavior, based on scholarship in political psychology, political science (American politics, comparative politics), and neighboring disciplines.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.655. Nietzsche, Foucault, Genealogy. 3 Credits.
This political theory graduate seminar explores the political and philosophical stakes of genealogy as initiated and inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault. We shall investigate the contours of genealogy as a scholarly approach to history, the politics of memory, colonialism/empire, the relationship between truth and power, race, sexuality, nature, language and authority. In addition to an encounter with the primary sources of these authors, seminar participants will take up a range of texts/authors whose work has been catalyzed by their innovations--even if those who adopt their scholarly sensibilities do no always necessarily share their politics and geographical points of reference. This will require us to consider their intellectual heirs that span the fascist to the radically democratic; the Anglo-Eurocentric to Indigenous and planetary, and the heteronormative to the gender non-conforming. Beyond Nietzsche and Foucault, authors might include (but not be limited to) Fanon, Brown, Connolly, Dunbar-Ortiz, Derrida, Butler, Hitler, Toscano, and Schmitt.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.656. Humanitarianism and World Politics. 3 Credits.
Humanitarianism has become a pervasive form of moral and political action in world politics. Over the course of the twentieth century and beyond, humanitarian logics infused the conduct of war and informed global governance in many areas—from refugee relief and post-conflict reconstruction, to peacekeeping and development, to migration, ecological security, and recovery from natural disasters. And yet, while often celebrated as an achievement, humanitarianism involves ambiguities, contradictions, and pathologies demanding critical scrutiny. This seminar aims, first, to interrogate critically the history of humanitarian practices and, second, to refine and revise concepts used to study and evaluate those practices. We pursue these aims in part with an eye to understanding mutations of humanitarian politics accompanying contemporary challenges to the post-WWII liberal international order. Topics include: (1) the invention of “humanity” as an idea/ideal; (2)humanitarianism, war and empire; (3) varities of humanitarianism; (4) humanitarian violence; (5) humanitarian expertise and institutions; (6) humanitarianism, media, and technology;
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken or are enrolled in AS.190.456 are not eligible to take AS.190.656.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.657. War, the State, and the Transnational Foundations of Conventional Violence. 3 Credits.
We are used to thinking of the state and war as fairly self-evident concepts and as the bedrock of so much work, not only in academic international relations, but also in policy discourse. It seems straightforward that states wage war, and war in turn may make or break states. Under conditions of rapidly advancing globalization, however, the relationship of these concepts is anything but straightforward. This class builds on historical investigations into state formation, the relationship of the military instrument to the state, the progressive globalization of the defense industrial base, the changing practices of military establishments, and related phenomena to question notions of state and security and to better understand the past and present fault lines of conflict.
Writing Intensive
AS.190.658. Global climate politics: Net-zero industrial policy and world order. 3 Credits.
This course will survey the history of geopolitics and green industrial from China’s wind and solar push in the 1990s to the Inflation Reduction Act and beyond. We will seek to understand the determinants of industrial policy, best practices for industrial policy, and the effects of industrial policy on climate politics. The lens of geopolitics and industrial policy provides a unique avenue to understand world order. Through this lens, we will see how energy systems and technology competition animate and structure global politics.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken or are enrolled in AS.190.458 are not eligible to take AS.190.658.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.659. Money and Sovereignty. 3 Credits.
The power to coin money was historically central to the formation of sovereign states. Yet the relationship between money and sovereignty has considerably evolved over time. First, the emergence of nation-states and of popular sovereignty meant that money was no longer primarily a state and elite concern, but also increasingly a matter of everyday life and mass politics. Second, the increasing integration and financialization of the world economy produced new challenges for sovereignty. We will discuss historical and social science scholarship that address these historical trends and the politics of money and sovereignty today. Topics will include: capitalism, public budgets and debts, central banks, populism, democracy, financialization, international integration.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.663. Planetary Geopolitics. 3 Credits.
With the tools of geopolitics, course explores political debates over globalization of machine civilization and changes in scope and pace, space and place, and role of nature in human affairs
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.666. Political Economy Of Development. 3 Credits.
"The political economy of development” comprises a broad range of theoretical and policy-oriented concerns. This seminar explores competing causal explanations for the following types of questions: What accounts for the dramatic variation in political, economic, and social conditions throughout the world? In what ways do economic and political dynamics interact in shaping developmental outcomes? To what extent does the timing of industrialization affect the viability of certain developmental strategies? The first third of the course covers post-war classics in the development literature, including modernization theory and its critics, and the political economy of international finance. The second part of the course examines contemporary debates concerning the role of the state in the development process. The last part of the seminar turns to developmental concerns at the sub-national level, including the informal sector and the political economy of migration. Graduate students only.
AS.190.667. Theories of Justice. 3 Credits.
This course will explore the classic question, “What is justice?” While we will entertain several different answers to the question, the course will focus on how these answers speak to and past one another, illuminating contemporary quandaries related to intergenerational justice, global justice, and the justice of resistance. Guided by Nietzsche, we will read texts by authors including, among others, Plato, Kant, Bentham, Marx, Rawls, Nozick, and West. Over the course of the semester, students will write three papers. There will also be a final exam.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.668. Rethinking Western Thought. 2 Credits.
The history of Euro-American Political Thought has been criticized for its orientations to race, gender, class, Christianity, the subject, capitalism, colonialism, sociocentrism, and humanist exceptionalism. How deeply are those themes ensconced in early Christian traditions, secular orientations to the earth, practices of capitalism, and contemporary images of “the political”? What openings are discernible? The seminar starts with Hesiod’s Theogony and a chapter from Tim Whitmarsh on atheism in ancient Greece. It then explores how Augustine consolidates sharp shifts in orientations to faith, divinity, nature, discipline, time and the earth. An agent of the first conquest of paganism. Readings in The City of God: Against the Pagans and The Confessions in relation to Foucault’s newly translated book, Confessions of The Flesh. Then we turn to what might be called the second Christian/imperial conquest of paganism, launched during the 15th century Spanish invasion of the Americas. How did that conquest re-enact and differ from the first? Texts by Todorov, The Conquest of America, alongside essays by C.L.R. James and perhaps de Castro. Followed by essays from Kant, Marx, Arendt, or Deleuze/Guattari, to see how each consolidates or turns earlier western theories. The seminar then engages Dipesh Chakrabarty in The climate of history in a planetary age as he criticizes Euro-centered thought (“the political”, the earth as background to politics, racism, exceptionalism, etc) and some currents in post-colonial thought. Critiques and augmentations will be explored, too.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.670. The Dream of the 90s: Political Theory, 1990-1995. 2 Credits.
This graduate seminar will explore works from this extraordinary period in contemporary political theory.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.671. Research and Inquiry in the Social Sciences. 3 Credits.
How do we assess research in the social sciences? What makes one study more persuasive than another? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the main methods used in research in the social sciences? What are the elements that go into designing a research project? This course considers these questions, introducing students to the basic principles of research design.
Prerequisite(s): Students may not have completed AS.190.601.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.675. Nuclear Weapons and Global Politics: History, Strategy, Race and Gender. 2 Credits.
This course provides an analysis of US foreign policy with a focus on the interests, institutions, and ideas underpinning its development. It offers a broad historical survey that starts with US involvement in the First World War, covers major developments of the twentieth century, and concludes with contemporary issues. Important themes include the developments underpinning the emergence of the liberal world order, strategies of containment during the Cold War, nuclear deterrence and antiproliferation efforts, the politics of international trade, alliance politics, technological and security policy, and the re-emergence of great power competition.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.676. Field Survey of International Relations. 3 Credits.
This course provides a scaffold for the study of international relations theory, organized historically and by major approaches. The focus is on close reading and discussion of exemplars of important bodies of theory. Intended for doctoral students with IR as their major or minor field. Graduate students only.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.681. Race and Politics of Punishment in the U.S.. 3 Credits.
Contact with criminal justice has become a primary way that many Americans see and experience government, particularly those from race-class subjugated communities. Yet, our field has been slow to appreciate the development of the carceral state or to consider its manifold impacts for citizenship. In this graduate seminar, we will survey key debates around punishment, state violence, and surveillance, with a particular focus on research that takes institutional development, history, and racial orders seriously. Why did the carceral state expand in “fits and starts” and with what consequence for state-building? We explore its (racialized and gendered) relationship to other key systems: foster care, social provision, labor relations and the labor market, and immigration enforcement. A core preoccupation of this course will be to understand the ways in which the criminal justice system “makes race” and how debates about crime and punishment were often debates about black inclusion and equality. How does exposure to criminal justice interventions shape political learning, democratic habits, and racial lifeworlds? In addition to policy, political discourse, and racial politics, we will employ works from a range of fields – history, sociology, law, and criminology – and a range of methods (ethnography, historical analysis, quantitative and qualitative). Required books include: Khalil Muhammad’s Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America, Elizabeth Hinton’s From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime, David Oshinsky’s Worse than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice, Bruce Western’s Punishment and Inequality in America, and Michael Fortner’s Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.682. The Politics of the Regulatory State. 3 Credits.
This graduate seminar considers regulatory politics in both the developing and developed world. Topics will explore the role of independent agencies, soft paternalism, co-regulation, regulatory failure, and other topics, across a host of sectors.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.684. War and Empire in World Politics. 3 Credits.
This course explores the intersection between war and empire in world politics, past and present. It conceives world politics as a space of co-constitution and war or violent conflict as a form of social interconnection. The premise of the course is that imperial warfare and violence have been generative forces in shaping world politics, well beyond the times and places of specific battles and killings. The course considers armed conflict in imperial context from colonial “small war” through to the War on Terror. It looks at how warfare shapes (and is shaped by) the societies, cultures and polities that populate world politics. The course considers also some of the intellectual traditions that have arisen out of the experience of, and inquiry into, colonial violence, from the thought of resistance leaders to subaltern and postcolonial studies. The course consists primarily of book length texts and the principal assignment will be a term paper which puts a set of these books in conversation with one another.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.686. The Right to the City. 2 Credits.
Over the past decade, political, economic, and cultural struggles in and over the city have become more important than ever before. Protests against the growing carceral state, against increasing wealth inequality, as well as revanchist attempts to rollback multicultural societal shifts all have the city as its core. While some Marxist thinkers suggest these struggles represent larger struggles over use- versus exchange-value, Black Radical thinkers connect these struggles to anti-black racism. In the wake of one world challenging movement – Black Lives Matter – and one world altering crisis – the Covid-19 pandemic - this course will reflect critically on these two traditions of thinking about the city and to rethink the Marxist tradition through the Black Radical tradition. We will anchor these conversations in an exploratory dialogue between two exemplars of each tradition - the French geographer Henri Lefebvre, and Detroit movement intellectuals James and Grace Lee Boggs. This class will be a vital component of the 2022-23 Sawyer Seminar.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.689. Marxisms: Ecological, Feminist, Racial, and Latin American Approaches to Historical Materialism. 3 Credits.
This seminar explores the intellectual origins and ongoing intellectual productivity of the historical materialist account of political economy inaugurated with Karl Marx. It considers, in particular, how fatal couplings between power and difference are leveraged by capitalism as a tool of accumulation. Women’s labor and social reproduction, nature’s availability for mastery and the destructive exploitation of land and natural resources, racial inferiority and exploitative conditions of labor, and Global South peoples conscription into hyper-exploitative labor. The seminar will explore and interrogate the political dimensions of these transformations: how are relationships of political rule entangled with capitalist priorities of accumulation and which peoples/political subjects get to do the ruling and why? How did patriarchal and racial arrangements came to be, how do they relate to the production of value, and how are they sustained politically today? How do historical political transformations (including formal decolonization, democratic transitions, and the onset of free trade and structural adjustment, among others) inaugurate new forms of accumulation and how do these forms and their politics take different shape in the North and the Global South? A sample of the readings include Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, W. E. B. Du Bois, Silvia Federici, Andreas Malm, Ruy Mauro Marini, and others.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.690. Untimely Politics. 3 Credits.
"The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, \ That ever I was born to set it right!" — Hamlet, Act I, Scene V
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.691. The Hopkins Seminar on Racial Politics. 3 Credits.
Race and racism are political productions and—as such—have significantly shaped the study of political science, whose origins in the race science and eugenics milieu of the late nineteenth century (largely at Johns Hopkins) led to a discipline that evolved to systematically exclude and distorts serious consideration of race and racism as constitutive of politics. This exclusion and distortion has resulted in a social science that fails to effectively predict, explain, and diagnose political phenomenon. In this seminar, we will explore both the formative effect of racism in political science and its implications for how political science subfields study race as a political concept and practice, and the tradition of racial capitalism, “written out” of political science until very recently. Students will emerge from this seminar with a solid account of the racial foundations of political science, a critical view on existing approaches to the study of politics, and a grasp of a sidelined tradition of the joint study of race and capitalism.
AS.190.693. Directed Readings: Research Methods & Perspectives on China. 3 Credits.
Focusing on directed readings, this PhD seminar will first explore the logic of research design in the social sciences, before applying these techniques to China. Then we will survey the history of Chinese studies in the United States, the evolution of data sources, research methods, and compare perspectives in the study of Chinese politics and political economy. Taught in conjunction with speaker events at 555 Penn, the first half of the course will be taught at Homewood and the other half at 555.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.694. Planetary Geo-Technics, Utopian-Dystopian Futurism & Materialist World Order Theories. 3 Credits.
There is a widespread recognition that the prospects for contemporary civilization and humanity are shadowed by a range of catastrophic and existential threats, a major subset of which are anthropogenic and technogenic in character. (In the simplest terms these threats arise from the collision between scientific-technological modernity and the geography of the planet Earth.) At the same time, the two most powerful institutional complexes on the planet (market capitalism and the war state system) are committed to further rapidly advancing technology for power and plenty, and anticipate further great elevations of the human estate. Over the last long century, a great debate has emerged, across many disciplines, on the ‘terrapolitan question’(TQ): given the new and prospective material contexts for human agency, what world orders are needed to assure human survival, prosperity and freedom? Practical agency responsive to the new horizon of threat and benefit depends upon getting an adequate answer to this question.Any theory capable of illuminating these realities and choices, and answering the TQ, must be significantly materialist in character. Explicitly materialist theories are very old, and very diverse, and material factors appear in virtually every body of thought, yet are still significantly underdeveloped in contemporary international and world order theory.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.695. Global Politics. 3 Credits.
The only academic discipline which has as its central focus the ‘international’ is International Relations (IR). In that discipline, the international is conceived primarily as a space of strategic interaction between sovereign states. In Raymond Aron’s view, it is populated mainly by diplomats, soldiers and businesspeople. Even when IR scholars add other actors like NGOs, IGOs, and MNCs, or norms and principles that encourage cooperation among states, the international remains a relatively spare or thin social space in comparison to domestic societies. This course begins from the opposite presumption, that the global is a thick space of social co-constitution. The course centers global phenomena such as capitalism, imperialism, race and ecology; situates them in historical and sociological perspective; and approaches them as productive of international orders and of the entities—states, societies, empires, colonies, and others—which populate it. Whereas IR focuses on the problem of anarchy among formally equal sovereigns, for global politics the central problematic is that of hierarchies of power, wealth and race. Arguably, this re-problematization returns the field to some of its originating concerns. This course draws on wider scholarship in the humanities and social sciences to reconceive the study of world politics.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.696. Political Theory in/as Political Economy. 3 Credits.
This graduate seminar in political theory will explore “political economy” conceptually. This is an advanced course in capitalist economics that takes up the study of economic forces as themselves relations of power/knowledge.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.697. Modern Political Thought. 3 Credits.
This course is a survey of modern political thought for advanced undergraduate students and graduate students. Its purpose is to (1) introduce some of the most significant texts in early modern European political theory, (2) survey a selection of the most important recent scholarly studies of these sources, and (3) develop theoretical and methodological skills at analyzing and interpreting the texts and the scholarship they have inspired.
Prerequisite(s): Students who have taken or are enrolled in AS.190.497 are not eligible to take AS.190.697.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.699. Writing a Prospectus in the Interdisciplinary Study of World Politics. 3 Credits.
Intended for IR PhD students, this course will assist students in conceptualizing and writing a dissertation prospectus. The course will help you develop your core idea; formulate a research question; and come up with a plan for researching it, including sources, methods and chapterization. The course will help you turn your dissertation idea or question into a dissertation project. The capstone of the course will be a workshop with external faculty where you will present your draft project, scheduled for mid-May 2025. The course will be most helpful to PhD students entering their second or third year and does not satisfy or replace the formal prospectus requirement for your PhD.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.800. Independent Study. 3 - 9 Credits.
Intended for specific research projects designed in conjunction with a supervising faculty member.
AS.190.801. Summer Research. 9 Credits.
General course covering a variety of different projects that can be undertaken independently over the summer, including studying for comprehensive exams, writing a prospectus, finishing term papers, or dissertating.
AS.190.802. Independent Research-Graduate. 3 Credits.
This independent research study will provide training to apply Political Science curriculum building and evaluation in a real-world setting. The study will give the student practical experience in evaluating the impact and success of a political science course on undergraduate students. The student will apply knowledge of the particular subject matter - the politics of liberal education in classical, modern, and contemporary times - to the evaluation, as well as develop skills introduced into the graduate program via TA training. The various teaching training elements of the graduate program are relevant to this position. The student will help faculty to write a report on course effectiveness.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.190.849. Graduate Research. 3 - 20 Credits.
This course is for Graduate students who have completed their coursework and are working toward the other program requirements.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.191.233. Collective Action and Organization Strategy in the U.S.. 3 Credits.
This class introduces students to the core theories, concepts and empirical analyses of two levels of collective action analysis: social movements and advocacy organizations. We will explore current and past social movements to ask questions both fundamental (e.g. “Why do social movements start?” “Under what conditions do they succeed?”) and to look critically at the real-world constraints and opportunities contemporary advocacy organizations face.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.191.251. From Ivory Tower to Situation Room: Academic Debates and U.S. National Security Policy. 3 Credits.
Just how well equipped is academia to answer the most challenging questions of US national security policy? From Henry Kissinger, to Zbigniew Brzezinski and Condoleezza Rice, it seems to be an American tradition to appoint well-trained academics to the highest ranks of U.S. national security decision-making. Academics have much to say about the questions that keep policymakers awake at night: How dangerous is the spread of nuclear weapons? Should the United States come to the defense of Taiwan in the event of an attack on that island? In this course we will take up a major topic related to U.S. national security policy each week, examining the existing arguments put forth by leading academics and policymakers alike.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
AS.191.282. Jazz and the City. 3 Credits.
Blues and jazz are rarely understood as mediums for political thought and action. Popular culture has always been an avenue for Black Americans to express their interests and influence American politics broadly, and yet few political scientists take interest in the political salience of the blues. This course will examine how the blues and its extension into jazz critique and explain conditions of racial domination in the plantation South and new relations of domination in the urban sphere. Students will explore these ideas using archival objects, African American literature, blues and jazz listening, and the works of artists and analysts such as Langston Hughes, W. E. B Du Bois, Bessie Smith, Eubie Blake, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Muddy Waters, Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, Harold Cruse, Amiri Baraka, Clyde Woods, Richard Iton, Daphne Duval Harrison, and Angela Y. Davis.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.191.302. The American Right in Comparative Perspective. 3 Credits.
The objective of this course is to examine the American right in comparative context with an emphasis on discussing how scholarship defines key terms, engaging various empirical cases from around the world ranging from Hungary to Turkey to India, and placing particular emphasis on linking theory with practice by inviting experts and scholars from within and beyond academia to discuss contemporary developments in global politics. We will closely consider major themes and concepts from other introductory political science courses such as democratic backsliding, global populism, the administrative state, and varieties of conservatism and partisanship. There are no prerequisites for this course and students from fields outside political science and international studies are strongly encouraged to participate. Dean's Teaching Fellowship.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
Writing Intensive
AS.191.311. Politics and the Secular Apocalypse. 3 Credits.
The prospect of rapid technological development, coupled with the fragility of existing political institutions, has led many futurists to argue that humanity’s chances of surviving the 21st century are no better than a coin flip. This course will introduce students to the nascent, interdisciplinary field of Existential Risk Studies while situating the conversation of ‘the politics of the apocalypse’ within a wider geophysical, sociological, and geopolitical perspective. Topics to be considered include nuclear technology, climate change and biospheric collapse, geoengineering, artificial superintelligence, transhumanism, and space expansionism as potential causes of political and existential crises.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.191.329. Spectral Futures: Black Temporality, Power, and the Politics of Liberation. 3 Credits.
How have Black communities practiced resistance, reimagined the future, and reshaped the politics of time? This course explores Black political behavior and resistance through the lens of Afrofuturism and alternative temporalities. Students will examine how conventional notions of time and progress have been used to reinforce power and inequity, and how Black political action, cultural production, and speculative imagination challenge these structures. Drawing on political theory, cultural texts, and Afrofuturist thought, we will investigate the strategies, visions, and practices that open new possibilities for political agency, collective memory, and visions of liberation and Black futurity.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.191.334. American Leviathan: Conservative State-Building in the United States. 3 Credits.
udging by institutional capabilities, modern conservative state-building is the most ambitious project ever undertaken by the American government, or perhaps any government in history. This seminar-style course will trace the emergence and unique features of this American Leviathan, encompassing the institutions dedicated to enforcement and national security as well as conservative visions of social policy. Across these different domains, we will look at how and why these programs and agencies manage to claim resources and attract unrivaled political support. From metaphorical wars waged against drugs or crime to a military-industrial complex unprecedented in its scale, we will look for patterns of conservative state-building in the presentation of mission, leadership style, and operation. Drawing on literatures and relying on insights from the disciplines of history and political science, this seminar will encourage and employ a broad analytical skill set in order to critique, and to better understand, the remarkable record amassed by the Leviathan of 20th century conservative state-building.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
Writing Intensive
AS.191.335. Arab-Israeli Conflict. 3 Credits.
The course will focus on the origin and development of the Arab-Israeli conflict from its beginnings when Palestine was controlled by the Ottoman Empire, through World War I, The British Mandate over Palestine, and the first Arab-Israeli war (1947-1949). It will then examine the period of the Arab-Israeli wars of 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982, the Palestinian Intifadas (1987-1993 and 2000-2005); and the development of the Arab-Israeli peace process from its beginnings with the Egyptian-Israeli treaty of 1979, the Oslo I and Oslo II agreements of 1993 and 1995, Israel's peace treaty with Jordan of 1994, the Road Map of 2003; and the periodic peace talks between Israel and Syria. The conflict will be analyzed against the background of great power intervention in the Middle East, the rise of political Islam and the dynamics of Intra-Arab politics, and will consider the impact of the Arab Spring.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.191.345. Russian Foreign Policy. 3 Credits.
This course will explore the evolution of Russian Foreign Policy from Czarist times to the present. The main theme will be the question of continuity and change, as the course will seek to determine to what degree current Russian Foreign Policy is rooted in the Czarist(1613-1917) and Soviet(1917-1991) periods, and to what degree it has operated since 1991 on a new basis. The main emphasis of the course will be on Russia's relations with the United States and Europe, China, the Middle East and the countries of the former Soviet Union--especially Ukraine, the Baltic States, Transcaucasia and Central Asia. The course will conclude with an analysis of the Russian reaction to the Arab Spring and its impact both on Russian domestic politics and on Russian foreign policy.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.191.354. The Global Politics of Migration and Mobilities. 3 Credits.
From pirates to settlers, enslaved people to nomads, tourists to migrants, global politics are made by the overlapping routes of people on the move, and by attempts to put some people on the move, while containing others in place. In an international world order of nation-states constituted through histories of mobility, questions of movement are amongst the most pressing political issues facing students of international relations. The course will explore some of these questions through engagement with academic texts as well as fiction, film, and archival materials, to ask: What does the study of world politics look like if movement is treated as a primary rather than an exceptional condition? How do contemporary regimes of (im)mobility function to put some people on the move, and attempt to contain others in place? How do processes of colonization and decolonization unfold through questions of mobility? How are questions of belonging framed in relation to movement and stasis, for example, in relation to those rendered ‘migrants’ and ‘natives’?
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.191.356. Beyond Good & Evil: Spinoza's Compositional Ethics. 3 Credits.
What does it mean to live in a world often characterized as “post-truth” or “post-moral”? The postmodern turn is often characterized by a rejection of moralism. Such criticisms often argue that that which has often been called ‘morality’ is only one way in which to valuate the better and the worse—and one which impoverishes life since its works by ‘judging life’ utilizing criteria which claim to stand outside and above the life thus judged. However if this is only one way in which to evaluate, the question which is raised is: what other frameworks for valuation could there be? This course will investigate what may be meant by the critique and explore other frameworks for valuation primarily through the immanent processual ethics proposed in Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics. Through reading Spinoza’s ethical framework in conversation with various considerations from fields such as the scientific, mathematical, literary, cinematic, and painterly, we will explore a possible alternative framework of normative evaluation, populated by considerations such as: power of action, capacity for affecting and being affected, what a body can do.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
AS.191.375. Thinking Organizationally about Politics. 3 Credits.
The fundamental units of all political life are organizations. Interest groups, social movements, political parties, militaries, legislatures, police forces, and schools all have to solve the fundamental problems faced by all organizations—how to acquire resources, generate support from external constituencies, develop coherent strategies and coordinate joint action. These fundamental challenges will be the subject of this course, which is designed to equip students with the skills of organizational analysis, drawing on insights from political science, sociology, history and economics.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.191.391. Political Pluralism in the Anthropocene: A World for Many Worlds. 3 Credits.
This course explores the evolving concept of pluralism in political theory, from its liberal foundations to contemporary calls for “deep pluralism” that engage radically different 'worldviews,’ ‘ontologies,’ ‘worlds,’ ‘cosmologies.’
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.191.397. The Politics of the Blues in U.S. Cities. 3 Credits.
How might we come to understand the blues as critical for ideational formations, identity, and institutional change for Black Americans in the twentieth century? Blues and jazz are not often understood as mediums for political thought and action. Popular culture has always been an avenue for Black Americans to express and influence American politics broadly. The blues has long been a Black working-class epistemology for Black survival and thriving, even further the blues is a foundation for building social democracy for all people. This course will examine how the blues and its extension into jazz critique and explain conditions of racial domination in the plantation South and new relations of domination in the urban North. With a particular focus on Baltimore, Chicago, and New York City, students will understand and analyze the socio-political life of the blues using historical institutionalist methods in political science.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.191.431. The Politics of Absolute Freedom. 3 Credits.
Is freedom possible within the complex conditions of modern civilization? We examine this problem through a study of how it was addressed in the rational humanist tradition (Rousseau, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Marx). Emphasis will be placed on how members of this tradition conceptualized freedom, how they theorized the nature of modern society, and what they took to be necessary to overcome modern alienation so as to achieve a world of actualized freedom. Utilizing the dialectical methods of intellectual history, we endeavor to learn from, critically evaluate, and discern the political effects of their theoretical innovations and ideological visions. Important top-ics covered will include democracy, liberalism, collectivism, the dialectic, ideology, capitalism, the nation-state, crisis theo-ry, class struggle, exploitation, revolution, and communism. We will explore these topics through close readings of origi-nal texts and systematic argumentation about their real-world implications. Students should expect to come away from the course with a heightened capacity for interpreting the history of ideas and theorizing about the institutional dynamics, ob-jective pathologies, and imaginable possibilities of our infinite-ly complex civilization. Previous coursework in political theory, intellectual history, or philosophy is recommended.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Cross Listed Courses
Agora Institute
AS.196.301. Social Entrepreneurship and Democratic Erosion. 3 Credits.
This course will explore the dynamics and interplay between social entrepreneurship, social change, and policy. Students will explore this specific moment in our democracy, and contextualize erosion happening in international and domestic contexts. The course will examine the intersection between social change and policy change, examining how the two concepts intersect while focusing on the end goal of systems change and furthering democracy. Students will examine different case studies of social transformation (or proposed social transformation) from across the United States and world. Guest speakers will include diverse practitioners of social entrepreneurship who think about long-term pathways to transformative social change, and dynamic policymakers. While the course will include case studies on broader domestic and international challenges and models of democratic erosion, a larger focus will be on specific local social problems and solutions. This will manifest through class discussions and a final project based on the surrounding community.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.196.306. Democracy by the Numbers. 3 Credits.
How is democracy doing around the world? This course will help students to answer this question and ask their own questions about political systems by examining a variety of quantitative measures of facets of democracy in the U.S. and internationally. We consider general indices as well as those that focus on specific normatively-appealing aspects—the absence of fraud in and broader integrity of the electoral process itself, the guarantees of fundamental human rights to all, governments’ effectiveness and accountability to the public, the equity of both representation and policy outcomes for minority groups and those historically disadvantaged or excluded, and the possibility and extent of civic engagement in non-government institutions. Wherever possible, the course will present evidence about the kinds of institutions and policies that seem to bolster democracy. Students can expect to gain hands-on experience with publicly-available subnational and national indicators of electoral and democratic quality.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Science and Data (FA2),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.196.363. Populism and Politics. 3 Credits.
Around the world, from Italy to Brazil, and from Hungary to the United States, populist candidates are fundamentally changing the political landscape. In this course, we explore the nature of populism; investigate whether populism poses an existential threat to liberal democracy; explore the causes of the populist rise; investigate the ways in which populism is a response to demographic change; and discuss what strategies might allow non-populist political actors to push back.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.196.411. The Modern American Midterm Election in Historical Perspective. 3 Credits.
American elections – even rare, unexpected, or paradigm-busting elections – do not occur in a vacuum. Instead, they are created, shaped, and constructed by a variety of significant forces, over time.This seminar thus suggests that you cannot understand modern American politics and contests, including the 2024 election and the upcoming 2026 election, without examining the historical antecedents that make the present-day moment possible. Consequently, while enrolled in this seminar, students will grapple with the following central question: what are the foundational moments in modern American social, political, and economic history that provided the “building blocks” for the 2026 United States Midterm Elections? How can we use history to analyze and explain the developments of the 2026 election, and put them in context as those moments are happening in real time?
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.196.600. Data-analysis for Social Science & Public Policy I. 2 Credits.
We will gain experience with data-analysis geared towards understanding the social world. Our scope ranges from simple descriptions and predictions under strong assumptions to intervention analyses that provide a more trustworthy foundation for quantifying causal effects. The course will be offered in a hybrid modality and will have a heavy focus on computation. We will alternate between discussion sessions devoted to fundamental concepts, and lab sessions devoted to a combination of web- and instructor-led data-analyses. Whenever possible, examples using both R and Stata and using a range of national and cross-national data-sources relevant to the study of democracy will be provided.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS.196.601. Data-analysis for Social Science & Public Policy II. 2 Credits.
We will gain experience with data-analysis geared towards understanding the social world. Our scope ranges from simple descriptions and predictions under strong assumptions to intervention analyses that provide a more trustworthy foundation for quantifying causal effects. The course will be offered in a hybrid modality and will have a heavy focus on computation. We will alternate between discussion sessions devoted to fundamental concepts, and lab sessions devoted to a combination of web- and instructor-led data-analyses. Whenever possible, examples using both R and Stata and using a range of national and cross-national data-sources relevant to the study of democracy will be provided.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
Anthropology
AS.070.311. Argot Workshop: Student Publishing from Start to Finish. 3 Credits.
Are you interested in learning how to design and run a student journal? Do you have a piece of writing you would like to prepare for a public-facing platform? If so, then join us for the Argot workshop. We will revitalize the JHU undergraduate anthropology journal, featuring work from students in the humanities and social sciences at Hopkins and beyond. In the workshop, students will engage with every aspect of the publication process, including soliciting submissions, reviewing and editing articles, and creating and designing the online platform. Students enrolled in the workshop will also submit one piece of work to be published in the journal. With that in mind, we ask that each student enter the workshop with a piece of writing they would like to see through to publication. This could be an essay from another course, a research project, or a visual or multimedia work (with a writing component). During the semester, students will work on their own submissions, provide editorial guidance for others, and design, create, and publicize the journal. The journal will be published online at the end of the semester, creating a concrete opportunity for student work to reach a wider audience.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
Writing Intensive
Center for Africana Studies
AS.362.216. The Politics of Black Cultural Production. 3 Credits.
Rather than being a niched form of popular culture, black music, films, and art has in some ways become synonymous with American culture. These productions and the workers associated with them have been used to sell everything from life insurance to computer chips. But accompanying these cultural productions are a whole host of questions regarding racial authenticity, the reproduction of urban space, and various gender/class dynamics, that have gone relatively understudied. In this class we will seek to trace the politics of the production, circulation, and consumption of black cultural production.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.362.325. Humanities Research Lab: The Military-Industrial Complex in Maryland, D.C., and Virginia. 3 Credits.
Washington, DC, is the capital of the United States but also the capital of its post–World War II national security state and military-industrial complex. This course will investigate the local effects of this status on the Washington-Baltimore corridor, in terms of immigration and urban development. The course will be divided into three major sections. First, we will analyze the growth and development of the military-industrial complex. Second, we will look at its place in the city and region’s development, including the construction of the Pentagon, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and other institutions. Third, we will analyze how these institutions have driven changes in the region’s population, as immigrants from war-torn parts of the globe have found new homes in and near Washington, DC. This course requires at least four Friday group trips to 555 Penn in Washington, which will take most of the day (transportation provided).
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.362.345. Black Politics I. 3 Credits.
This course is a survey of the bases and substance of politics among black Americans and the relation of black politics to the American political system up to the end of Jim Crow. The intention is both to provide a general sense of pertinent issues and relations over this period as a way of helping to make sense of the present and to develop criteria for evaluating political scientists' and others' claims regarding the status and characteristics of black American political activity.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Classics
AS.040.309. (Trans)lating Orpheus. 3 Credits.
What does it mean to translate? Is a translation merely a transposition of a text or speech from one language to another, or does it entail more? Can the act of translating happen between different genres? What does critical reading entail? In this class we will use the well-known myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to answer these and other questions by analyzing different versions of the myth that span across time, space, language, genre, and media. We will not just learn about translation broadly defined, but also about the metaphor of translation as a transition or a crossing between (or a-cross) multiple entities. Much like Orpheus, we will embark upon a journey of discovery full of forks and twists in the road, only to discover that what Orpheus was searching for might not be as far removed from contemporary questions of identity, self, and our place in the world.
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.040.615. Ovid's Metamorphoses. 3 Credits.
A study of the Roman poet Ovid’s timeless tale of change, explored in relationship to the philosophical Daoism of Zhuangzi and to recent critical and philosophical concepts such as becoming, transformation, autopoeisis.
Comparative Thought and Literature
AS.300.215. Law and Literature. 3 Credits.
This course will examine the relationship between law and literature. As many have observed, literature and law have much in common as well as much to teach each other. Topics this course will discuss include practices of interpretation, issues of authority, and the power of narrative. In addition to reading essays by scholars in the field, students will read a selection of judicial opinions, short stories, novels, and plays. Final grades will be based on class participation, three in-class essays, and a group project due at the end of the semester.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.300.402. What is a Person? Humans, Corporations, Robots, Trees. 3 Credits.
Knowing who or what counts as a person seems straightforward, until we consider the many kinds of creatures, objects, and artificial beings that have been granted—or demanded or denied—that status. This course explores recent debates on being a person in culture, law, and philosophy. Questions examined will include: Should trees have standing? Can corporations have religious beliefs? Could a robot sign a contract? Materials examined will be wide-ranging, including essays, philosophy, novels, science fiction, television, film. No special background is required.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.300.414. Comparative Thought: Pass-words Across Zhuangzi, Thoreau, and Heidegger. 3 Credits.
Exploration of key terms, such as “action,” “uncertainty,” and “change,” as they resonate across the works of three authors, each associated with a different tradition of thought: Zhuangzi (ancient Daoism), Thoreau (American transcendentalism), and Heidegger (German phenomenology).
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.300.441. Thoreau and Whitman: The Concept of Influence. 3 Credits.
Readings from the works of Thoreau and Whitman, with an eye toward how they explore the multi-specied process of influence upon subjectivity-formation. “Influence” names the incursion, absorption, digestion, and transformation of an outside (including bodies, ideas, affects, elements, moods, atmospheres) into a subjectivity experienced as an inside. What are the powers and limits of Whitman’s and Thoreau’s experiments with language and writing (rhetoric, syntax, imagery, myth) as they seek to induce, inflect, combat, and transform influences? What role do their physical encounters with nonhuman agencies (of plants, animals, objects, divinities) play in, first, the way such encounters are turned into words (depicted and described) and, second, in the degree and kind of influence that those encounters and words have upon us as readers?Cross listed with Political Science
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3)
AS.300.604. Cicero and Deleuze. 3 Credits.
A comparative study of the philosophy, rhetoric, and naturalism of Marcus Tullius Cicero (Rome, 106–43 BCE) and Gilles Deleuze ( 1925–1995). Texts include Cicero’s On Fate and On Divination and Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus. The seminar will explore themes pertaining to the environmental humanities and eco-criticism, semiotics, materialisms, stoicism, and the practice of cross- and trans-historical comparison and invention.
AS.300.614. Comparative Thought: Pass-words Across Zhuangzi, Thoreau, and Heidegger. 3 Credits.
Exploration of key terms, such as “action,” “uncertainty,” and “change,” as they resonate across the works of three authors, each associated with a different tradition of thought: Zhuangzi (ancient Daoism), Thoreau (American transcendentalism), and Heidegger (German phenomenology).
AS.300.618. What is a Person? Humans, Corporations, Robots, Trees.. 3 Credits.
Knowing who or what counts as a person seems straightforward, until we consider the many kinds of creatures, objects, and artificial beings that have been granted—or demanded or denied—that status. This course explores recent debates on being a person in culture, law, and philosophy. Questions examined will include: Should trees have standing? Can corporations have religious beliefs? Could a robot sign a contract? Materials examined will be wide-ranging, including essays, philosophy, novels, science fiction, television, film. No special background is required.
Distribution Area: Humanities
Writing Intensive
Critical Study of Racism, Immigration, & Colonialism
AS.305.135. The Future of Work: AI, Labor, and Migration. 3 Credits.
How is the so-called “AI Revolution” altering the landscape of work? This course takes up this question through the lens of underemployment, migratory labor, and diasporic communities. We will read a variety of key works on migration and imagined communities, precarity and alienation, labor, automation, and empire—as well as texts produced in the margins of globalization. In conversation with these texts, we will investigate the dynamics of diasporic communities, migration, and solidarity vis-a-vis the future of work in a global society increasingly automated by AI models such as DeepSeek, ChatGPT, and Qwen 2.5, and the entities that own them. Through a variety of writing assignments and presentations, students engage issues such as race, class, gender, the border, citizenship, and community as they exist for diasporic and migratory workers. This course explores themes relevant to students of Critical Diaspora Studies, as well as the history of science and technology, political science and political economy, international studies, literature, film, and sociology. Readings may include works by Ruha Benjamin, Audre Lorde, Harry Braverman, Benedict Anderson, David Harvey, Edward Said, Mary L. Gray, Octavia Butler, and Ngugi wa Thiong’o.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.305.246. Out of Place: Diasporic Stories, Real and Imagined. 3 Credits.
How do displaced people turn their experiences into stories? What can narratives of displacement teach us about the formation of individual and collective memory, the construction of personhood, and the placeness of diaspora, at once real and imagined? In this seminar, we examine the facts, fables, and fictions of displacement to and from the United States as constructed in literature, film, visual art, popular media, and personal accounts. Our investigations may include Chinese labor on the transcontinental railroad; Germans fleeing fascism in Los Angeles; Black Americans’ self-exile; forced displacement after Hurricane Katrina; Latin American immigration; and migration patterns in Silicon Valley. Working though these events, we will map differences and commonalities in modes of displacement and analyze the structure and quality of their narratives. Theoretical texts will orient and deepen our investigations; these may include works by Homi Bhabha, Richard Wright, Mike Davis, Cherríe Moraga, Fred Moten, Louise Pratt, Theodor Adorno. Student assignments will present opportunities for informal and formal writing and small group collaborations.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.305.288. The Aesthetics of Resistance. 3 Credits.
This course surveys the stories and storytellers of key moments of resistance or revolution, such as the 1848 Revolutions, the Haitian Revolution, the 1968 Student Movement, Occupy, Arab Spring, and Women Life Freedom. We will critically examine how such moments are, or become, narratives and how, as such, they may or may not acquire afterlives. To this end we will investigate a variety of materials, produced from a variety of points of view: the press, participants, observers, commentators, instigators, theorists, and those reconstructing the events after the fact as histories or fictions. Key themes include notions of personhood, citizenship, solidarity, equality, and futurity, as well as the aesthetics of how social uprisings are represented in a variety of media. Readings might include texts by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Alejo Carpentier, C.L.R James, Peter Weiss, Manuel Puig, Carlos Fuentes, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Audre Lorde, Joshua Clover, and others.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
East Asian Studies
AS.310.305. China, Southeast Asia, and U.S. National Security. 3 Credits.
The global political and security landscape of the 21st century will be shaped by the rivalry between two superpowers -- China and the U.S. For the foreseeable future, the geographic focus of that contest will be Southeast Asia and the surrounding maritime space, particularly the South China Sea. Southeast Asia is a complex, highly differentiated region of ten-plus nations, each with its own unique history and relationship with China. This course will introduce Southeast Asia as a key region -- geographically, economically, and strategically -- often overlooked by policymakers and scholars. It will also focus on the craft of national security strategy as the best tool for understanding the multi-sided competition, already well underway involving China, the U.S., and the Southeast Asian states.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.310.326. Labor Politics in China. 3 Credits.
This course explores the transformation of labor relations in China over the past century. It will cover the origins of the labor movement, the changes brought about by the 1949 Revolution, the industrial battles of the Cultural Revolution, the traumatic restructuring of state-owned enterprises over the past two decades, the rise of private enterprise and export-oriented industry, the conditions faced by migrant workers today, and recent developments in industrial relations and labor conflict. The course is designed for upper division undergraduates and graduate students.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.310.340. Development and Social Change in Rural China. 3 Credits.
This course will survey the major issues of development and social change in rural China since 1950s. These issues will be addressed in chronological order. They include land ownership and land grabbing, organization of rural economic, political, and social life, rural elections and village governance, development strategies, urban-rural relationship in resource allocation, rural modernization strategies in regard to irrigation, clean drinking water, electricity supply, hard paved road, education and rural medical service, women’s rights and family life, rural consumption, and etc. This course will prepare students, both empirically and analytically, to understand what happened in rural China from 1949 to the present, and how we can engage in policy and theoretical discussions based on what we learn.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
English
AS.060.690. Fascism in Theory and Practice. 3 Credits.
“Fascism” has returned to the political vocabulary of the times suddenly and without much intellectual preparation. This graduate seminar proposes to put on a firmer conceptual footing the possibility of understanding the present political and social crisis as the “return” of fascism as a political culture across the Euro-American world and beyond. We shall examine historical and contemporary developments in (and encounter texts from) a range of regions across the world: Western Europe, the United States, Russia, and India. We shall read works of literature, theory and philosophy, literary and linguistic analysis, and sociology by such figures as Sinclair Lewis, Bertolt Brecht, Filippo Marinetti, Julius Evola, Ezra Pound, Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, Georges Bataille, Theodor Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Margaret Atwood, and Alexander Dugin, among others.
Distribution Area: Humanities
Film and Media Studies
AS.061.201. Intermediate Digital Production: Mitigation Video. 3 Credits.
In this course, you will produce a 7–10 minute mitigation video to be used in a Maryland resentencing hearing as part of the state’s Decarceration Initiative. Working in a two-person Maysles-style camera/mic unit ideally one film student and one social science student as a team, you will collaborate with Maryland Office of the Public Defender attorneys and social workers to interview an incarcerated client inside a correctional facility, document the lives of their family and community members, and craft a character-driven narrative grounded in care, accuracy, and ethical responsibility.The class is designed to conduct an intensive 10-day production outside of class consisting of: 1 day Orientation at the Baltimore City Office of the Public Defender + 2 days on-site pre-production + 4 days Primary filming + 2 days Pick-up shoots + 1 day Community screening for fact-checking and final consent. Throughout the semester, you will complete weekly production assignments, maintain professional communication with stakeholders, and develop a legal, sociological, and human understanding of how individual life histories are shaped by structural forces such as race, class, policing, and incarceration. Students who have completed at least one of the following will be given priority: AS.061.150, AS.061.152, AS.100.423, AS.220.213, AS.362.204, AS.362.127, AS.191.365, AS.145.360, AS.360.111, AS.060.315, AS.362.115, AS.362.335, AS.190.300.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
First Year Seminars
AS.001.100. FYS: What is the Common Good?. 3 Credits.
What is “the common good”? How do individuals consider this idea, this question, and how are societies led, or misled, by its pursuit? Together, we will explore sources from a range of perspectives: What does Aristotle’s theory of the common good teach us? Or the Federalist Papers, the design of Baltimore’s public transportation system, meritocracy in higher education, the perniciousness of pandemics, proliferation of nuclear weapons, restorative justice, or intimate love? Drawing from film, journal articles, literature, and other sources—authors/creators include Rachel Carson, James Baldwin, Bong Joon-ho, Jhumpa Lahiri, Michael Sandel, and more—this First-Year Seminar is as much about how we ask and interrogate challenging, timeless questions as it is about the answers themselves. Engaging our material and each other, we will work together to hone the habits of scholarly inquiry essential to this practice: reading, writing, talking. The seminar will culminate in a final, collaborative research project that seeks to map, and manifest, versions of the common good.
AS.001.135. FYS: Free Speech and Its Limits. 3 Credits.
Freedom of speech, and the related freedom of the press, are core values for democracies -- and for universities, in which the freedom to challenge accepted beliefs is assumed to be essential to advancing knowledge. The 1st Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and of the press, as do the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the European Convention on Human Rights among other statements. But like other rights, my right to freedom of speech may conflict with yours, or it may infringe on other important rights or societal objectives. As a result, freedom of speech cannot be (and in practice is not) unlimited. In this seminar, we will be asking why freedom of speech has been accorded such importance, and how and why it might legitimately be limited, in politics, in business, in everyday life, and in universities, looking both at the United States and at other liberal democracies. Reading will include opinions (both majority and dissenting) of courts in the United States, Canada, and Europe, with discussion informed by Justice Robert Jackson’s quip about the US Supreme Court (but equally applicable to other top-level courts): “We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final.”
AS.001.137. FYS: The Power of Speech: Law, Politics, and the Humanities. 3 Credits.
What don’t we do with words? Even silence makes manifest the power of speech. This First-Year Seminar will introduce you to some of the ways that power has been described and thought about. In addition to studying arguments that connect the power of speech to what it means to be human, we will explore various attempts both to protect and limit speech, taking into consideration not only how we do things with words but how words affect us. Topics that will be covered include freedom of speech, censorship, hate speech, talking back, silence, and storytelling. We will read texts in philosophy, political science, law, and literature, and we will watch at least one film or play.While we discuss the power of speech, we will also reflect on the ways in which discussion fosters a community. In other words, the experience of our discussion is a topic for our conversation. First-Year Seminars are designed to encourage “meaningful civil exchange among students across disciplinary interests and backgrounds” as well as to “foster early, sustained faculty-student interaction and mentorship.” We will talk about how such seminars are supposed to work and how they may (or may not) realize their goals. Reading, analyzing, and discussing the texts assigned in this course will help us develop foundational critical thinking skills; how might these activities also establish a sense of (group) identity?
AS.001.146. FYS: Democracy is Hard. 3 Credits.
This First-Year Seminar will investigate the American democratic experiment from multiple angles, including by exploring the differences between democratic and alternative forms of governance; the founders' democratic ideals and blindspots; their debates about design; historical shifts in conceptions of democracy and citizenship; and the ever-present social and cultural challenges (and joys!) of practicing democracy and forging a common life across our religious, economic and other differences.
AS.001.168. FYS: The Psychology of Mass Politics in the U.S.. 3 Credits.
This First-Year Seminar looks at the deeper psychological motivations of the American electorate. We begin by discussing the meaning of democracy and establishing a common understanding of American democracy specifically, placing the current moment into historical and international context. We then gradually dismantle the "folk theory" of democracy that assumes all voters are rational and economically-minded. Instead, we apply theories from social psychology to understand some essential questions about voter behavior. Why do people vote? How do they understand politics? How are their feelings and judgments affected by their own identities, biases, information sources, and by the messages they hear from leaders? Why have Americans grown so polarized? What role do racial and gender-based prejudice play? Is American politics headed toward a more violent future? We use evidence-based research from political science, sociology, and psychology to answer these questions.
AS.001.184. FYS: The Mathematics of Politics, Democracy, and Social Choice. 3 Credits.
This First-Year Seminar is designed for students of all backgrounds to provide a mathematical introduction to social choice theory, weighted voting systems, apportionment methods, and gerrymandering. In the search for ideal ways to make certain kinds of political decisions, a lot of wasted effort could be averted if mathematics could determine that finding such an ideal were actually possible in the first place. The seminar will analyze data from recent US elections as well as provide historical context to modern discussions in politics, culminating in a mathematical analysis of the US Electoral College. Case studies, future implications, and comparisons to other governing bodies outside the US will be used to apply the theory of the course. Students will use Microsoft Excel to analyze data sets. There are no mathematical prerequisites for this course.
AS.001.193. FYS: Diplomacy and Conflict in the Ancient Middle East. 3 Credits.
This First-Year Semianr offers an introduction to the changing paradigms of diplomacy and conflict in the pre-modern Middle East (ca. 3100-323 BC). From Hammurabi of Babylon (and earlier!) to Alexander the Great, students will be introduced to the history and culture of the pre-modern Middle East and will study in translation primary sources such as royal inscriptions, law collections, treaties, and diplomatic correspondence. We will consider issues such as how diplomacy and conflict both reflect and constrain political structures; what aspects of diplomatic life are found throughout the early Middle East and what are particular to various cultures; similarly, what aspects of diplomatic life change over the millennia and what aspects endure; and even how we can talk about international relations in a pre-modern world without “nations.”
AS.001.210. FYS: Democratic Erosion. 3 Credits.
This First-Year Seminar explores how political polarization reshapes democratic norms, institutions, and identities, with particular attention to young people as both products and agents of democratic erosion. The course examines how and why democracies weaken, and how leaders are using democracy to erode democracy.Students will explore questions like:What is democratic erosion, and how is it different from previous forms of authoritarianism? When does polarization cross the line from healthy conflict to democratic decay? How do identity, belonging, and moral certainty shape citizens’ willingness to accept democratic rules? Why do young people often distrust institutions while still believing in democratic ideals—and what does that mean for democracy’s future?Students will engage with a mix of accessible political science, journalism, and primary sources, including case studies from the United States and abroad; survey data on polarization, trust, and youth attitudes; media coverage and social-media content; and short philosophical and historical texts on democracy, legitimacy, and civic responsibilities.The seminar emphasizes active discussion and debate. Students will analyze real-world political controversies, participate in structured debates, and reflect on how polarization shapes their own political identities. Short writing assignments and a final project will ask students to assess whether democracies can be repaired—and what role their generation might play.
AS.001.254. FYS: Passion and Politics. 3 Credits.
This First-Year Seminar examines the significance of passions, or emotions, in contemporary political life. It aims to understand the risks and possibilities associated with emotion, and to reflect critically on how debates over political inclusion and exclusion, justice and injustice are informed by emotions—real and imagined. We will consider questions such as: How did “reason” become stripped of passion and elevated as a foundational ideal in modern, liberal societies? Why and when are emotional forms of political expression and conduct accepted, and when are they demonized? How and when do public expressions of fear inspire measures to protect national security? Under what conditions does anger fuel struggles for justice? What, if anything, is different about how passions operate within populist political parties and movements? And how are human experiences of emotion changing in algorithmically driven public spaces? Such questions will allow us to secure footholds in contemporary political environments often densely populated with impassioned rhetoric, backlash dynamics, and public fascination with political scandal, provocation, and conspiracy. We draw on some canonical texts in political thought before moving into multidisciplinary readings on moral psychology and the contemporary politics of emotion. Students will also have the opportunity to gather and assess emotional “artifacts” from contemporary political discourse. Topics for the seminar include: the politics of fear; anger and justice; populism and resentment; algorithms and attention; and the politics of paranoia and conspiracy.
AS.001.281. FYS: The Political Economy of the Pinkertons. 3 Credits.
This First-Year Seminar explores the history of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, the first American detective firm and a major force in American politics from the 1850s through the 1930s. We will follow the Pinkertons from Civil War battlefields to the bloody fights over the American West, as they chase train robbers, break strikes, and create a trail of enemies along the way. Over the course of the semester, we will visit the B&O Railroad Museum and also investigate representations of the Pinkertons in popular culture, including the video game Red Dead Redemption 2.
History
AS.100.107. History of the Global War on Terror. 3 Credits.
The United States and its allies launched the Global War on Terror in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attack. But it quickly exceeded the scope of neutralizing al-Qaeda, the organization behind that attack, leading to military campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and across numerous countries in Africa and elsewhere. This course will examine the historical background of the Global War on Terror, including its relationship to prior stages of colonialism and the Cold War. It will delve into the post-9/11 wars and examine the relationship between US foreign policy and regional politics in Asia and Africa. This course is sequential to AS.100.106, The History of the Global Cold War, though that course is not a prerequisite. This course will introduce students to concepts and methods in the study of recent history, as a foundation for further courses in History, Critical Diaspora Studies, International Studies, Political Science, etc.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.100.145. Introduction to Computational History. 3 Credits.
History exists at the intersection of the humanities and social sciences and, thus, is a perfect gateway to students interested in either discipline. This course engages both a “history of data” and the “data of history” by exploring American labor, consumer, and business history. Students learn to think critically about how data are made and organized, then use historical datasets to build arguments and visualizations about social and economic change over time. Tools include Google Sheets, Python, and Claude AI. No prior experience with statistics or programming required.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Science and Data (FA2),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
Writing Intensive
AS.100.171. Europe since 1945. 3 Credits.
This class focuses on Europe from the end of World War II until today. We will discuss topics such as the Cold War, the European welfare state, Europe’s volatile relations with the US and the Soviet Union/ Russia, decolonization, 1989 and neoliberalism, racism, European integration and the role of the European Union in international politics. Expect to spend 25% of class time in group work, where we discuss the assigned literature, movies, documentaries, textual and visual primary sources.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.100.274. Conspiracy in American Politics. 3 Credits.
Conspiratorial thinking is nothing new in American politics. Since the founding of the nation, Americans have been riveted—and riven—by conspiracy theories. This course introduces students to key methods and questions in U.S. history by exploring conspiratorial episodes from the American Revolution through the present. We’ll pick apart allegations and denials of conspiracies to discover what they tell us about American politics and culture. We’ll also consider historians’ analyses of conspiratorial claims, and think about the relationship between conspiracy and historical causality.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.100.295. American Thought since the Civil War. 3 Credits.
A survey of major developments in American philosophy, literature, law, economics, and political theory since 1865. Among other subjects, readings will explore modernism and anti-modernism, belief and uncertainty, science and tradition, uniformity and diversity, scarcity and surfeit, and individualism and concern for the social good.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.100.345. Right-wing Populism since the 1980s. 3 Credits.
This seminar will explore the development of right-wing populism in the US since the 1980s, beginning with Ronald Reagan’s election and ending in the present day. A key focus will be the relationship between populist visions of American government, identity politics, and economic crisis.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.100.404. John Locke. 3 Credits.
John Locke’s works had enormous influence in eighteenth century America and on justifications of the American Revolution. In this 250th anniversary year of the Declaration of Independence, this seminar- style course will read and discuss Locke’s major works intensively together with works influenced by Locke’s arguments and together with select scholarly interpretations. Locke’s works will be placed into the seventeenth century British, European and American contexts in which they were written, and the eighteenth-century American contexts in which they became extremely influential.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.100.411. AI and Data Methods in History. 3 Credits.
This course engages both a ‘history of data’ and the ‘data of history’ by exploring American labor, consumer and business history. Students will learn how to think critically about how data are made and organized. They will then use that data to build arguments and visualizations about social and economic change over time. Throughout the course, we will learn to use various tools such as Google Sheets, Python, and ChatGPT for data analysis. No prior experience with statistics or programming is necessary, but students should come with a desire to learn.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Science and Data (FA2),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
Writing Intensive
AS.100.412. Baltimore, Basketball, and the Legacy of Bentalou. 3 Credits.
In this community-engaged sports history seminar, we partner with co-educator Coach Paul Franklin and an after-school youth basketball program in Bentalou, West Baltimore, founded in 1970. This class provides crucial lessons about US and sports history in the 20th and 21st centuries. We will study the history of urban planning, public health, law and order, and politics in Baltimore through the lens of this program and seek to better understand its significance for the community. Our group is tasked with researching the program’s evolution: we will speak with experts, sports figures, organizers and community leaders in the city, conduct interviews with past and current players, coaches, and supporters, explore relevant archives, newspapers, photos and film. Expect 90% group work and, instead of class, attend some U10 & U12 games. Collectively, we will decide on the deliverables to be presented to parents and players at the end-of-the-season celebration in April.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.100.442. The Intellectual History of Capitalism, 1900 to present. 3 Credits.
Since 1900 global markets have undergone a dramatic transformation. This course will grapple with the writings of economists and social theorists who sought to understand the implications of these changes, and in some cases helped to inspire them. Questions they addressed include: does freedom result from the absence of coercion, or does it require the provision of capacities? Do markets reward desirable behaviors, or do they produce social and environmental pathologies? Does competition occur spontaneously, or does it require careful regulation and reinforcement? And what is the relationship between innovation and inequality? Readings include selections from Max Weber, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, W.E.B. DuBois, John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek, Karl Polanyi, Joseph Schumpeter, Theodor Adorno, Milton Friedman, Donna Haraway, Wendy Brown, and Thomas Piketty. Class meetings will focus on the close reading of these texts, and discussion of how and why perceptions of the market economy have changed over time.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.100.445. Revolution, Anti-Slavery, and Empire 1773-1792: British and American Political Thought from Paine, Smith, and the Declaration of Independence to Cugoano, Wollstonecraft, and the Bill of Rights. 3 Credits.
This seminar-style course will focus on discussing British and American political thought from the "Age of Revolutions", a period also of many critiques of Empire and of many works of Antislavery. Readings include Paine's Common Sense and Rights of Man, the Declaration of Rights, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers; works by Smith, Burke, and Wollstonecraft; and antislavery works by Cugoano, Equiano, Rush, Wesley, and Wilberforce.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
History of Art
AS.010.327. Asia America: Art and Architecture. 3 Credits.
This course examines a set of case studies spanning the last century that will enable us to explore the shifting landscape of Asian transnational art and architecture. Each week will focus on a different artist, group, exhibition, architect, urban space, or site to unpack artists' and architects' engagements with the changing landscape of immigration policies, movements to build solidarity with other artists of color, and campaigns for gender and sexual equality. The course will situate these artists within American art, and build an expansive idea of AsiaAmerica to include the discussion of artists whose work directly addresses fluidity of location and transnational studio practice.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
Interdepartmental
AS.360.461. Hopkins Semester DC Applied Practitioner Seminar. 3 Credits.
In this course, students learn from experts in the field as connected to the semester’s theme. The practitioners will present on their field of expertise thus providing students substantive engagement with a variety of perspectives relating to the central theme. Discussions with Hopkins Semester faculty will provide connection and framing for engagements with external stakeholders. Additional skills potential for development in this course include enacting policy in the world (networking, negotiations, public speaking, project management, (Political) Risk Analysis, Lobbying and Advocacy, Applying for Federal Jobs, Consulting), and others relevant to subsequent themes.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.360.631. Race War: Theories and Histories. 3 Credits.
In modern times, wars become sites of race making. In turn, racializations become projects of war, violence, and extraction. This seminar explores this mutual implication of race in war and war in race. It attends to the entwinement of dehumanization and humanization in race war across specific historical contexts. These include the eras of European expansion; the world wars; US-American hegemony; and contemporary ecological crisis. We shall investigate settler-colonial racializations of Indigenous peoples; racializations of Afro-Diasporic and Asian peoples; the constitution and transformation of the White races, as well as those of humanity and the Human race, all in contexts of war and extractive violence. The course takes a “history and theory” approach, one attentive to the ways in which the events, practices and theories of race war emerge and develop together in co-constitutive ways over time. Notably, alongside practitioners of race war and their theorizations, race war has been a key site for the development of critical theory, anti-colonial thought, Black radical thought, and other traditions of critique and resistance. In these and other ways, the course explores the contours of race war in modern political and social thought, amid empire building and world-ordering projects, total wars and genocides, and capitalist and ecological crises.
International Studies
AS.192.150. States, Regimes & Contentious Politics. 3 Credits.
This course satisfies the gateway requirement for the major in International Studies and it satisfies the requirement for a 100-level course in comparative politics for the major in Political Science. Substantively, the classes introduces students to the study of politics and political life in the world, with a particular focus on the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. Throughout the course, we will analyze the sources of order and disorder in modern states, addressing a series of questions, such as: why did nation-states form? What makes a state a nation? Why are some states democracies while others are not? How do people organize to fight oppression? Why does conflict sometimes turn violent? What are the causes of ethnic war? Drawing on a mix of classic works and contemporary scholarship, we will discuss the answers that scholars have formulated to address these and other questions, paying special attention to research design and the quality of argumentation.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.192.225. Economic Growth and Development in East Asia. 3 Credits.
Over the past three decades, East Asia has been the most dynamic region in the world. East Asia has a remarkable record of high and sustained economic growth. From 1965 to 1990, the twenty-three economies of East Asia grew faster than all other regions of the world mostly thanks to the ‘miraculous growth’ of Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand; these eight countries, in fact, have grown roughly three times as fast as Latin America and South Asia, five times faster than Sub-Saharan Africa, and significantly outperformed the industrial economies and the oil-rich Middle East and North Africa regions. Poverty levels have plummeted and human-development indicators have improved across the region. The course is divided into three parts to allow students to develop expertise in one or more countries and/or policy arenas, while also cultivating a broad grasp of the region and the distinct challenges of “fast-paced, sustained economic growth.” Part I will introduce the subject, consider the origins of Asian economic development, and analyse the common economic variables behind the region’s success. It will look at the East Asian Crisis and will consider its lessons and assess whether or not East Asian countries have learned them. While the course will show that there are many common ingredients to the success of the region’s economies, it will also show that each country is different, and that differences could be, at times, quite stark. Hence, Part II will focus on the development experiences of individual countries, with a special emphasis on the ASEAN economies, NIEs, Japan and China. Finally, Part III will consider various topics of special interest to Asia, including trends toward greater regional economic cooperation, both in the real and financial/monetary sectors, and issues related to poverty, migration, and inclusiveness in the region. NOTE: Contact Dr. Dore if prerequisites are not met.
Prerequisite(s): AS.180.101 AND AS.180.102
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.192.335. Diplomats, Experts, and Activists in International Politics. 3 Credits.
While it is commonplace to speak of international politics as a domain of states, the work of foreign affairs and global governance is performed by actual people within complex institutions and organizations. This course sets out to understand the diplomats, experts, and activists who occupy and navigate these roles. It considers the evolution and contestation over values and norms within institutions, organizations, and movements, and it examines the standards of expertise that allow these actors to assert authority at the international level. The course also considers activists, skeptics, and other challengers seeking to undermine or radically transform established institutions and practices of global governance. Through diverse and interdisciplinary readings on diplomatic practices, institutional cultures, and social movement dynamics, students will also gain insight into professional avenues available in international and global affairs.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.192.404. Autocracy, Democracy and Development: Korea, Indonesia and Myanmar. 3 Credits.
East Asia’s “miracle growth” has not gone hand in hand with a decisive move toward democracy. Over the last 30 years, only eight East Asian countries have become democratic out of more than 60 countries worldwide, and they continue to struggle with the challenges of democratic consolidation, weak political governance, and limited citizens’ political engagement. This course explores the reasons why democratization proceeds slowly in East Asia, and seems to be essentially decoupled from the region’s fast-paced economic growth. The choice of Korea, Indonesia, and Myanmar as the case studies for this course results from their authoritarian past as well as their more recent institutional and political trajectories towards democracy.Contact instructor if prerequisites are not met.
Prerequisite(s): AS.180.101 AND AS.180.102
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.192.430. Emotional States in International Politics. 3 Credits.
This course explores the role of emotions in international politics. Claims about shared emotion—including but not limited to fear, anger, guilt, humiliation, and compassion—are frequently woven into the public images and foreign policy narratives of states. This course reflects on who is making such claims, why, how, and to what effect. We begin with consideration of enduring puzzles in international relations, including the idea of the state as rational actor and the central role of fear under international anarchy, as well as a series of more recent, cross-disciplinary frameworks designed to understand states as sites and objects of emotional politics. The bulk of the course then engages with a series of closer studies on topics of contemporary significance; these topics may include: contestation over historical memory and collective trauma, performances of emotion in diplomatic summits, struggles for recognition and status, narratives of national decline, conspiracy theories and foreign policy, the role of humor and insult in foreign policy discourse, and the rise of populism and nativism.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Modern Languages and Literatures
AS.211.171. Brazilian Culture & Civilization: Colonial Times to the Present. 3 Credits.
Did you know that Brazil is very similar to the United States? This course is intended as an introduction to the culture and civilization of Brazil. It is designed to provide students with basic information about Brazilian history, politics, economy, art, literature, popular culture, theater, cinema, and music. The course will focus on how Indigenous, Asian, African, and European cultural influences have interacted to create the new and unique civilization that is Brazil today. The course is taught in English.No Prereq. THERE IS NO FINAL EXAM.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.211.245. AI from Descartes to Bladerunner 2049. 3 Credits.
How long has AI been part of our cultural imagination? This course critically engages instances of artificial intelligence in thought, literature, and film from the 17th century to the present. In conversation with the realities of machine learning, algorithms, generative AI, large language models, automation, and so on, we will investigate the nature of artificial intelligence vis-à-vis issues of labor, consciousness, collectivity, individualism, fantasy, and futurity. Students will consider philosophical texts alongside works of science fiction, literature, and film. Readings may include texts by Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Poe, Hofmannsthal, Marx, Foucault, Alan Turin, Charles Babbage, Philip K. Dick, and Ursula Le Guin. No technical knowledge or prior courses are required!
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.211.387. Theories of Peace from Kant to MLK. 3 Credits.
That the nations of the world could ever work together seems utopian, but also unavoidable: migration, war, and not least climate change make some form of global coordination increasingly necessary. This course will give historical and philosophical depth to the idea of a cosmopolitan order and world peace by tracing it from its ancient sources through early modernity to today. At the center of the course will be the text that has been credited with founding the tradition of a world federation of nations, Immanuel Kant’s "Toward Perpetual Peace" (1795). Confronting recent and current political discourse, literature, and philosophy with Kant’s famous treatise, we will work to gain a new perspective on the idea of a world order. In addition to Kant, readings include Homer, Erasmus, Pico della Mirandola, Rousseau, Jeremy Bentham, Emily Dickinson, Tolstoy, Whitman, Rosa Luxemburg, Gandhi, Hannah Arendt, John Lennon, and Martin Luther King as well as lesser-known authors such as the Abbé de Saint-Pierre, Ellen Key, Odette Thibault, Simone Weil, and Claude Lefort. Taught in English.
Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.211.438. On Tyranny: Theory, Literature, History. 3 Credits.
Despotism, authoritarianism, autocracy, dictatorship: the terms for tyranny are legion. But what exactly do we mean by tyranny, and how are we to understand it? This seminar will explore what literature, philosophy, and political theory, ancient and modern, have to say about both this (protean) concept and its many historically charged avatars. A deeper look into the history of “tyranny” reveals unexpected complexities, from affirmative uses of the term to radical critiques. To better understand this complex history and what it is we mean when we oppose political repression today, we will read classic works from political theory, philosophy, and literature (e.g. Plato’s “Apology of Socrates,” “Republic” VIII-IX; Xenophon’s “Hiero”; Livy’s “Ab Urbe Condita” 1-2; Seneca the Younger’s “De Clementia”), early modern (e.g. Machiavelli’s “Prince”; La Boétie’s “On Voluntary Servitude”; Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”; Schiller’s “Fiesco”) and modern works (e.g. Strauss on Xenophon, followed by Kojève’s Commentary; Arendt’s “Origins of Totalitarianism”).
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.208. Dystopian Fiction & Socioeconomic Thought. 3 Credits.
Dystopia (from the Latin) means “bad place.” Classic literary dystopias such as We, 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451 depict societies gone wrong, bad places in which socioeconomic ideas promise harmony but produce nightmarish, even apocalyptic outcomes. A common theme of dystopian fiction is the conflict between collective need and individual desire. In this course we will pursue this theme, and others, as we read works of fiction alongside influential works of socio-economic thought. One of our aims will be to tease out the buried dreams and latent possibilities in the historical realities and literary imaginings of dystopic worlds. Readings include selections from popular fiction and contemporary media as well as texts by authors such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Hayek, Rosa Luxemburg, W.E.B. Du Bois, Franz Kafka, Juli Zeh, Olivia Wenzel, Elias Canetti, Brigitte Riemann, Hannah Arendt, Frantz Fanon, Herta Müller, and Philip K. Dick.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.325. Revolution, Power, and Poetic Justice: From Peasant Revolts to Workers Revolts in Literature and Phi. 3 Credits.
Political thinkers from Ernst Bloch and Carl Schmitt to Reinhard Koselleck and Theodor W. Adorno have long been drawn to Heinrich von Kleist’s novella “Michael Kohlhaas” because of the questions it raises about what a just political order would be when, in the context of this story, only the threat of violence enables the powerless to be heard. The novella takes place in the latter half of the sixteenth century as the feudal era is coming to an end, and Kohlhaas’s struggle to rectify the damage done to his property reveals the vulnerability of the then emerging merchant class to the still unchecked power of the nobility. Yet Kohlhaas’s response to the situation proves to be as arbitrary as the injustice he faces, and the only solution the novella can find for this impasse is a fairy tale that embodies—in all senses of the phrase—poetic justice. This course will examine the novella in its historical context (Reformation, doctrine of natural law, Prussian land reform) and with an eye toward modern thought on state violence, terror, liberalism, and the power of art. All texts and discussion in English.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.213.364. Truth and Lies in the Languages of Politics. 3 Credits.
Fake facts, conspiracy theories, outright lies: have we entered a new era of “post-truth”? Some claim that deception has always been a part of political processes, that objectivity is an illusion, that every “fact” is made, formed, fashioned, constructed (“fact” comes from the same Latin root as “fiction”). Others insist that without a distinction between truth and lie, all politics is a farce, and look to fact-checking and evidence for guidance. Who is right? And what assumptions are at the basis of this perhaps overly-simple binarism? In order to get a grasp on these questions, we will explore the theme and the concept of lying in literature, philosophy, and current media, with an emphasis on political language. We will read literary texts by Heinrich von Kleist, Herman Melville, Thomas Mann, the much-discussed GDR novel “Jacob the Liar,” political philosophy by Plato, Machiavelli, Kant, Nietzsche (“On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense”), Simone Weil, Hannah Arendt, and Nina Schick’s 2020 exposé “Deep Fakes: The Coming Infocalypse.” We will apply what we learn from these readings to fake news and social media in order to develop new skills of dealing with manipulative language. Taught in English (with the option of a section in German).
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.213.398. Speaking Truth to Power: From Martin Luther to Audre Lorde. 3 Credits.
“Here I stand; I can do no other.” With these words, Martin Luther challenged the greatest powers of his time. Centuries later, Audre Lorde declared that “your silence will not protect you,” reframing truth-telling as a tool for survival and liberation. This course explores the ethics and aesthetics of fearless speech (Parrhesia). We will examine how individuals and literary figures—from 16th-century reformers to modern activists, from Sophocles’ Antigone to Wieland’s Diogenes—risked their lives and reputations to speak a truth that disrupts the status quo. How does language become a weapon? What is the cost of breaking the silence? And can truth remain “true” once it enters the arena of political power? These and other questions will be at the core of our inquiry in this seminar as we navigate the boundary between private conscience and public defiance. Readings include: Martin Luther, Plato, Sophocles, Wieland, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, and Audre Lorde. A section in German will be offered for interested students.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Culture and Aesthetics (FA3),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1)
EN Foundational Abilities: Creative Expression (FA3),
Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.213.702. Aesthetic Judgment, Political Agency: Kant to Kafka. 3 Credits.
Following Hannah Arendt’s seminal claim that Kant’s “Critique of Judgment” contains his unwritten political philosophy, this seminar investigates how the structure of aesthetic judgment defines the possibilities of political agency. We begin with Kant’s aesthetic theory and Arendt’s “Lectures on Kant” to understand how the ability to think from the standpoint of others constitutes the core of the political. Through this lens, we trace the genealogy of aesthetics from Baumgarten’s sensuous cognition to Herder’s empathy, Schiller’s aesthetic education, and Novalis’ poetics of the state. The course then examines exemplary and radical challenges to these models: the fanaticism of justice in Kleist’s “Michael Kohlhaas,” the aesthetic appeal for social justice in Bettina von Arnim’s “This Book Belongs to the King,” the fragmented political consciousness in Virginia Woolf’s “Three Guineas,” the transition from disinterested distance to radical attention in Simone Weil, and finally, the law as inscrutable form in Kafka’s “The Trial.” Readings include: Baumgarten, Kant, Herder, Schiller, Novalis, Kleist, Arnim, Arendt, Weil, Woolf, and Kafka.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS.213.705. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. 3 Credits.
We will study key passages of The Phenomenology of Spirit from a queer-feminist and a literary perspective and engage with scholarship on Hegel that is pertinent to these approaches.
Distribution Area: Humanities
Philosophy
AS.150.240. Introduction to Political Philosophy. 3 Credits.
This course begins by reviewing canonical texts in modern political philosophy beginning with Thomas Hobbes and John Locke and ends by exploring classic questions in contemporary debates in race, gender, and identity.
Distribution Area: Humanities
AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4),
Democracy (FA4.1),
Ethics and Foundations (FA5)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
AS.150.613. Graduate Seminar: Topics in the Philosophy of Mind - Perception. 3 Credits.
Recent work on the philosophy of perception, including Tyler Burge's new book Perception: First Form of Mind
Distribution Area: Humanities
Sociology
AS.230.275. Revolution, Reform and Social Inequality in China. 3 Credits.
This course will examine various aspects of social inequality in China during the Mao and post-Mao eras, including inequality within villages, the rural/urban divide, labor relations, education and health policies, gender and ethnic relations, and the social foundations of elite groups. Each of these topics will be tackled analytically, but the goal is also to understand what it was and is like to live in China as the country has undergone radical social transformations over the past seven decades. The course is writing-intensive and will be conducted as a discussion seminar.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive
AS.230.387. Global Migration and Refugees: Applied Research and Practice Seminar. 3 Credits.
This course will introduce students to the cutting-edge debates on global migration and refugees and give them a first-hand look at the complicated interactions between research, politics, and policy-making. Each week, students will read the work of a featured scholar who will visit the class as a guest lecture, giving students the unique opportunity to directly engage with the scholar. In addition, policy makers, community groups, and activists dealing with migration will visit the class for guest lectures, and students will have the opportunity to learn exactly how, when, and why research is (and is not) applied on the ground. To highlight the global nature of the theme, the course will highlight issues of immigration and emigration, receiving and sending countries, in the global North and South. This course is offered in Washington DC and is available to students accepted to the Spring 2025 Hopkins Semester DC only.
Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences
AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1),
Citizens and Society (FA4),
Projects and Methods (FA6)
EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)
Writing Intensive