POLITICAL SCIENCE

Political Science 285

Modern Political Theory
Beloit College
Spring 2007

Course Objectives

The aim of this course is to acquaint you with some of the major European political thinkers of the sixteenth through nineteenth century, which is widely known as the modern period. One of our tasks will involve figuring out what it means to be “modern” in this context. While closely reading these seminal works, we will pay specific attention to what their authors say about the ends and capacities of human beings, the nature of the world around them and what implications such ideas hold for political institutions and practices, as well as for the possibilities of freedom, equality and justice.

I will encourage you to read carefully and to express your ideas clearly in written as well as in oral form. Class discussion and writing projects will be geared toward deepening your understanding of the assigned texts and honing your own perspective toward them.

Requirements

Class citizenship – preparation, attendance, participation

This course involves critical analysis and discussion of the assigned texts, so attendance, preparation and participation are essential.

You must do the assigned reading for each class before attending that session. In preparing for class, you need to complete the reading and gather your thoughts about it in a way that prepares you for active engagement in our discussion of the text. In other words, you need to have a strong enough grasp of the reading and your own ideas about it to understand the points that are being discussed, to add insightful comments of your own, and/or to ask relevant questions.

I try to assign a reasonable amount of reading for each day so that you can read the text carefully and re-read it if necessary. Some of these readings are likely to be difficult for you. You will need to spend time figuring out what claims the author is making, what questions you have about them, and where these particular arguments fit in relation to the themes the class is exploring.

Because we will rely on analysis of arguments made by the various authors we read, you should ALWAYS bring the assigned text to class.

Along with being an active and close reader of the assigned texts, be on the lookout for other material that relates to the themes of the course. Newspaper and magazine articles, or an anecdote about campus life, can shed light on a difficult subject or help all of us think of it in a different way.

Your contributions to class discussion can take on a variety of forms: asking and answering questions; raising new topics; responding to comments made by others.

Please listen well to your classmates and engage them. Remember that we all share a common mission: to understand the texts and the themes that underlie them and to evaluate them. You will learn much from others, and we will learn much from you, but only if you speak and listen well. These are not mutually exclusive activities.

Consistency in attendance is important for your own learning, as well as for maintaining continuity in class discussions and for building trust and rapport among your peers. For this reason, I expect you to attend class unless you are ill or must deal with a personal or family emergency, and I expect that if you are dealing with such a situation, you will contact me in person or by phone before class. Excessive unexcused absences (i.e., more than three) will result in a substantial grade penalty.

Your meaningful and constructive contributions to class discussion (including writing tutorials) will constitute 20% of your final grade.

Writing

We read seven authors in this course. You will write brief (3-page) essays on four of them, with some flexibility in your choice.

For one of those essays, you will write a revised and expanded (5-7 page) final version that takes into account my suggestions, the comments of your peers and your own further reflections on the topic. The input from your peers will be offered in a tutorial in which some of your fellow students will have read the first draft of your essay.

When each essay is assigned, you will have the opportunity to sign up for the tutorial and revision process. When you sign up, you indicate your commitment to posting your essay on Moodle before class on the day that it is due and offering comments on others’ essays posted there, as assigned. The tutorial itself will occur on the Friday following the due date for the first draft.

If fewer than four students sign up for any tutorial, I will assign others to that tutorial through random selection. If more than six students sign up for any tutorial, I will delete registrants through random selection.

You may participate in more than one tutorial and revise more than one essay with my permission.

Because we read Locke just before the midterm examination and Nietzsche so close to the end of the semester, you will not have the option of writing short essays on them but will have the opportunity to consider their, along with other assigned authors’, ideas in your exams.

Please do the math: We read seven authors, 3 before break, 4 after break. You must write on four authors, five of which are available for such writing assignments. This means that you must write at least one essay before spring break.

Midterm

On March 2, you will have an in-class midterm examination which will consist of one essay question.

Final Exam

Your in-class final exam will take place on Tuesday, May 8 from 9 to 11 a.m. It will cover the entirety of the course and will consist of one or several essay questions.

Please note the date of the exam and make your travel plans accordingly. I do not accept departure from campus as an adequate rationale for the rescheduling of exams.

Academic Honesty

Submitting original work is central to your life as a student and to our collaborative work as a community of learners. If you submit the work of others as your own, you have lost sight of what it means to be a student and have destroyed the relationship of trust and respect that should exist in a classroom. Rather than learning, you seem only interested in pretending to complete assignments, and that serves no one’s purposes well.

For these reasons, I take academic honesty very seriously and expect you to understand, and to follow, Beloit’s policy on academic honesty printed in the Student Handbook.

Simply put, you must give credit where credit is due. This includes not only acknowledging direct quotes with quotation marks and proper citation but also correctly citing any sources – including online ones – from which you have drawn insight or information in each instance where you have benefited from such sources. This includes when you paraphrase that material.

If you choose not to follow these guidelines, you will receive an F on the assignment in which the offense occurred, and I will notify the Dean of Students office regarding your plagiarism. If others have reported you for similar offenses, you are likely to be suspended or expelled.

Expectations regarding written work

Written assignments must be handed in during class on the day they are due. I also expect you to be prepared for class on the day that you hand in an assignment.

Late essays will be penalized one grade increment per day. If you need to seek an extension, you enhance the likelihood that I will grant one if you plan ahead and request such an extension at least three days prior to the due date of the assignment. You may have only one extension for the semester. No extensions will be granted for the take-home final exam, and (again) no late papers will be accepted for that final.

Without prior arrangement, essays will not be accepted later than two weeks after they are due. Papers which exceed this deadline or are not submitted will receive a zero. You must hand in all assigned work in order to receive a passing grade in this course.

Special note: Make back-ups of your work. Do not expect that you will receive automatic — or lengthy — extensions because you experience computer problems.

I expect papers to be neatly typed and double-spaced with realistic margins and fonts (e.g., 1" margins on all sides and 12-point Times Roman font). If you have questions about this, ask me. Citations should follow Chicago/Turabian style. Guidelines for this style can be found at http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/DocChicago.html, in Kate Turabian’s A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, the Chicago Manual of Style or any other number of guides, including Diana Hacker’s A Pocket Manual of Style.

I also expect your writing to exhibit a working knowledge of grammar and spelling. You should proofread your work even if you have spelling and grammar checks on your computer.

Egregious spelling or grammatical errors will result in grade penalties.

Please remember to number the pages of your papers. Completing this simple task facilitates my reading of, and commenting upon, your work. Consequently, it improves my mood tremendously as I grade, and your interests are served accordingly.

Papers that are not stapled will be returned. As a college student, you should now own a stapler. Professors also appreciate it if you don’t randomly show up at their offices, asking to borrow their staplers.

Students with Disabilities

If you have a disability and would like to speak to someone about possible accommodations, please visit the LSSC (Learning Support Services Center) located on the first floor of 635 College St. You will need to provide appropriate documentation of your disability to Diane Arnzen, Director of the LSSC. If you wish to receive accommodations in my class please provide me the LSSC Accommodation Verification Letter dated for this semester as soon as possible so your learning needs may be appropriately met.

Grading

We are all part of a system that requires grades. Yet grades tend to distort the learning process because they encourage you to seek my approval rather than your own satisfaction.

Because I want you to reflect on your understanding of the texts at hand, your writing and how to enhance each, I will not simply stamp grades on your essays. If you want to know how you are doing in this class, come to my office during office hours or make an appointment to see me. In our meeting, I will ask you to evaluate your own work and offer my own observations about it. You might not always agree with my perspective, nor I with yours, but we will have engaged in a discussion of your ideas and their expression. As a result, I hope we will both learn something about writing as well as about how we evaluate it.

If you do not check in with me to discuss your work in this course, don’t expect me to respond to complaints about the grade you receive. E-mail me anytime you wish to make an appointment.

That said, you have a right to know the various weights that I place upon different
assignments. They are as follows:

Class Citizenship 20%

(Includes writing tutorial contributions)

Essays 45%

(3-page essays = 10% each; revised and expanded essay = 15%)

Midterm 15%

Final Exam 20%

Books to Buy

Burke. Reflections on the Revolution in France. Penguin.

Hobbes. Leviathan. Penguin.

Locke. Second Treatise of Government. Hackett.

Machiavelli. Selected Political Writings. Hackett.

Marx. The Marx-Engels Reader, Second Edition. Norton.

Nietzsche. On the Genealogy of Morality. Hackett.

Rousseau. The Basic Political Writings. Hackett.

I urge you to purchase the edition of the works cited here because it facilitates class discussion if we share the common pagination. They are relatively inexpensive.

Please note the following extra credit opportunities (Others TBA):

January 20 WEISSBERG CHAIR EVENT (extra credit):
BIFF screening of Long Night's Journey into Day with talkback by Richard Goldstone. 7:30 p.m., Wilson Theater

January 24 WEISSBERG CHAIR EVENT (extra credit):
Lecture by Richard Goldstone: “South Africa's Transition to Democracy”
8 p.m., Moore Study Lounge

January 27 WEISSBERG CHAIR EVENT (extra credit):
Conference: Transitional Justice: accountability after mass atrocities,
9 a.m. – 4 p.m., Moore Study Lounge
For more details

Class Schedule

January 16 Introduction

January 18-January 30 Machiavelli

Essay assigned: January 26

Essay due: January 30

Tutorial: February 2

Revision due: February 6

February 1-15 Hobbes

Essay assigned: February 9

Essay due: February 13

Tutorial: February 16

Revision due: February 20

February 16-March 1 Locke

March 2 Midterm

March 5-9 Spring Break

March 13-27 Rousseau

Essay assigned: March 23

Essay due: March 27

Tutorial: March 30

Revision due: April 3

March 29-April 5 Burke

Essay assigned: March 30

Essay due: April 5

Tutorial: April 6

Revision due: April 10

April 6-20 Marx

Essay assigned: April 20

Essay due: April 24

Tutorial: April 27

Revision due: May 1

April 24-May 1 Nietzsche

May 8 Final Exam