Ithaca College

Are you looking for a 3-credit, 2-week course to get ahead (or make up) general education/ICC requirements?
 
Are you interested in thinking about where you stand on some of the most critical issues of the day, and why?—And why others might agree or disagree with you?
  
Take ‘IDEAS & IDEOLOGIES’ during the May Session! (May 13-23)

General Education category: Self & Society
ICC Themes: World of Systems, Power & Justice
ICC Perspectives: Humanities, Social Sciences

Course description:

What is your idea of the ‘good life’ or a ‘perfect world’? How do you think we might achieve it, and why? Where do your ideas about the world and your own life come from? How do your individual beliefs relate to broader systems of thought we call ideologies? This course encourages self-reflection on contemporary issues and debates as we explore the ideological roots of political, social and economic life.

Through readings, film, art, music and your own observations, the course focuses on key political ideas and the ideological debates over their meaning and practice. We will examine a range of views on concepts such as liberty, equality, democracy, authority, security, order, community, and nation. We will consider how these and other political ideas developed historically, why certain ideas endure, and why they remain important to understanding politics today. In doing so we will also pay close attention to how political ideas reflect, reinforce, and challenge relations of power, especially in terms of class, race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality.

The course encourages critical reflection on where our views about the world come from, and on aspects of political life that we take for granted. Encounters with political theories different from our own subjective views help bring to light our unconscious assumptions and also what is distinctive about our political views. Ideological perspectives the course explores include liberalism and conservatism (and their “neo” variants), socialism, anarchism, and fascism.

Register now for the May Session!

Questions? Email Kelly Dietz at kdietz@ithaca.edu

Course name and number: Ideas & Ideologies, POLT 14200-01
CRN: 10054
Credits: 3
Instructor: Dr. Kelly Dietz, Politics Dept
Course format: Discussion
Meeting time: 9:00am-1:30pm, Mon-Fri, May 13-23