IDEAS UG2

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What you learn about on modules in this stream: This stream is for students drawn to the philosophical and theoretical foundations of politics and the life of ideas. It brings together modules in political theory, ethics, and intellectual history, encouraging critical engagement with questions of justice, freedom, power, and identity. Students examine the thinkers and traditions that have shaped political life—from early modern political thought through to contemporary critical theory—and learn to interrogate the assumptions underpinning political institutions and movements.

Career ambitions: policy analyst at a think tank, speechwriter for a politician, working in political communications or political consultancy, working as a journalist or editor for a newspaper, broadcaster, or national magazine.

SECOND YEAR MODULES IN THIS STREAM

PR2490 – CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL THEORY

POL

Module Description – This module concerns the theories underlying discussion of political problems and issues today. The Autumn Term surveys recent political theorising in the Anglo-American tradition by looking at some key concepts and theories. These include the value of democracy (compared to other systems of political rule); what justifies civil disobedience in a democracy?; what we mean by freedom (non-interference or a more substantial ideal of autonomy)?; what human rights are and whether they represent a Western, ethnocentric ideal?; proponents and critics of socio-economic equality; social justice (focusing on John Rawls’s hugely influential theory); whether states have the moral right to exclude immigrants?; multiculturalism and special rights for cultural minorities, reparations for historic injustices such as slavery; and what duties citizens in rich states have to the global poor. The Spring term explores questions concerning identity, difference, and power, through the works of Michel Foucault, Tzvetan Todorov, Jean-Paul Sartre, Judith Butler, Achille Mbembe, and Edouard Glissant. It uses these thinkers to examine the constitution of forms of otherness and the politics of their subordination and exclusion. It will ask whether the virtues so closely associated with contemporary liberal theory and politics, such as tolerance, equality, individual rights, democratic accountability, and justice, are adequate these forms of exclusionary politics that remain common in modern society. In doing so, it will examine how these issues play out in recent theorizations of race, gender, sexuality, and more.

Module Leaders – Dr Jonathan Seglow and Professor Nathan Widder

Module Delivery – Weekly lectures and seminars

Assessment – Essay 1 (1800 words) – 30%; Essay 2 (1800 words) – 30%; Exam – 40%

What you can do to prepare for this module – For the Autumn term, take a look at Andrew Shorten’s book, Contemporary Political Theory or Adam Swift’s book, Political Philosophy, both available online via the library. The Justice Everywhere blog is also interesting. For the Spring term, two short pieces that address many of the issues to be covered are the Introduction to William E. Connolly’s Identity\Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox and Foucault’s Introduction to the English translation of Herculine Barbin: Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-Century French Hermaphrodite.

PR2560 – MODERN POLITICAL THOUGHT

POL

30 credits – Autumn and Spring terms

Module Description – This module introduces students to major political thinkers from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, including the works of Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, Smith, Mill, Marx, Nietzsche, and Douglass. The module aims to introduce students to the themes, argumentative strategies, and critical interpretations of these thinkers, and to help them develop the skills to critically assess these interpretations against the texts themselves. It also aims to show how study of these thinkers illuminates contemporary discussion of freedom, pluralism, sovereignty, and legitimacy, even where no reference is made to them. In contrast to PR249 – Contemporary Political Theory, this module is organised around thinkers, not by theme and so you will explore each thinker in more depth and with closer attention to the original material. The module only goes up to the start of the 20th Century and does not cover more contemporary thinkers.

Module Leaders – Dr Michael Bacon and Dr Nat Rutherford

Module Delivery – Weekly lectures and seminars

Assessment – Essay 1 (1800 words) – 30%; Essay 2 (1800 words) – 30%; Exam – 40%

What you can do to prepare for this module – listen to the Talking Politics: History of Ideas podcasts available here: Link

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