Download Political Thought – Classical and Medieval

Political Thought – Classical and Medieval
Professor Melissa Schwartzberg
Spring 2013
Wednesdays, 11-12:50
[email protected]
Office hours: Wednesdays 1:30-3:30, and by appointment
The title of this course is a misnomer: this semester, the course will focus
exclusively on Greek political thought, and in particular on the status of knowledge and
persuasion in democratic life. Can democratic citizens render good judgments, and what
practices and institutions improve or distort their capacities?
Course prerequisites
This course is structured as a graduate seminar in political theory. There will be a
considerable amount of reading, which must be done with great care, since high-quality
participation is expected. The bare-minimum course prerequisites are as follows:
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Undergraduates in Columbia College: Contemporary Civilization, with a first
semester grade of B+ or better. An additional course in political theory is strongly
preferred.
GS students and master’s students outside of the Departments of Political Science
and Classics: At least one prior course in political theory.
Course requirements:
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Undergraduates:
o Midterm take-home exam (8-10 pages): 40%
o Final take-home exam (8-10 pages): 40%.
o Participation: 20%
Graduate students:
o Choose either midterm/take-home or term paper.
o If term paper, 20-25 double-spaced pages in length: 80%. Paper topics
must be approved by April 1, and are due May 15.
 Note: I cannot grant incompletes this semester. Please seriously
consider whether you will be able to meet this deadline before
deciding to write a term paper.
o Class participation: 20%.
Required texts (available at Book Culture):
Aristotle. Politics. Trans. Ernest Barker. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Aristotle. Rhetoric. Trans. George Kennedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Plato. Complete Works. Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997.
Thucycides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Trans. Rex Warner. New York: Penguin,
1972.
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Secondary literature
This is not intended to be a comprehensive list by any means – just some starting points.
Undergraduates should feel free to ignore this list entirely; graduate students may wish to
read selectively after they have read the primary texts.
Allen, Danielle S. Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship Since Brown v. Board of
Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Allen, Danielle S. Why Plato Wrote. London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Annas, Julia. An Introduction to Plato’s Republic. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1981.
Balot, Ryan K. Greek Political Thought. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006.
Barker, Ernest. The Political Theory of Plato and Aristotle. New York: Dover, 1959
(reprint).
Barker, Ernest. Greek Political Theory: Plato and His Predecessors. New York: Taylor
and Francis, 1951.
Farrar, Cynthia. The Origins of Democratic Thinking: The Invention of Politics in
Classical Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988,
Frank, Jill. A Democracy of Distinction: Aristotle and the Work of Politics. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Garsten, Bryan. Saving Persuasion: A Defense of Rhetoric and Judgment. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2006.
Klosko, George. The Development of Plato’s Political Theory, second edition. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006.
Kraut, Richard. Aristotle: Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Monoson, S. Sara. Plato’s Democratic Entanglements. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2000.
Nussbaum, Martha. The Fragility of Goodness, second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2001.
Ober, Josiah. Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1989
Ober, Josiah. Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular
Rule. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Rorty, Amelie, ed. Essays on Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1996.
Rowe, Christopher and Malcolm Schofield, eds. Cambridge History of Greek and Roman
Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Schofield, Malcolm. Plato: Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Sinclair, T.A. A History of Greek Political Thought. London: Routledge, 1952.
Villa, Dana. Socratic Citizenship. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.
Yack, Bernard. Problems of a Political Animal: Community, Justice, and Conflict in
Aristotelian Political Thought. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
Yunis, Harvey. Taming Democracy: Models of Political Rhetoric in Classical Athens.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.
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Schedule
January 23: Introduction.
January 30: Thucydides, Book I; Book II.1-65.
Feb. 6: Thucydides, III.1-85; V.25-26, 84-116; VI.1-41; VII.72-87; VIII.45-97.
Feb. 13: Plato, Apology and Crito.
Feb. 20: Plato, Protagoras.
Feb. 27: Plato, Gorgias.
March 6: Plato, Republic. Books I-III.
March 13: Plato, Republic. Books IV-VII.
March 27: Plato, Republic. Books VIII-X.
[Midterm distributed, due April 3]
April 3: Aristotle, Politics. Books I-II.
April 10: Aristotle, Politics. Books III-IV.
April 17: Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book I.
April 24: Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book II; Books III.1-12.
May 1: Conclusion: Demosthenes, On the Crown.
[Final distributed, due May 15]