Ithaca College

Global Political Thought, POLT 14400, CRN 41532, 43155

This course explores the global context within which contemporary sociopolitical relations unfold. It brings together a wide array of texts and thinkers who, in different ways, have all engaged in careful and thoughtful analyses of a range of issues that are integral to the study of political thought: race and the enduring legacies of colonialism; exile, displacement, and the fracturing of identity; the relationship between colonizer and colonized; the meaning of freedom and historical struggles for liberation and human dignity; the importance of collective memory in shaping political imaginaries; the material and existential effects of colonial occupation and dispossession; the role of global violence as a catalyst for political and cultural change, as well as its effects on the lives of ordinary individuals. In exploring these themes, we will pursue three main objectives: (1) to understand the constitutive role that colonialism, racism, and dispossession have played in shaping core ideas about order, government, justice, power, authority, historiography, civilizational difference, individuality, and freedom in western social and political thought; (2) to analyze how these ideas have been discussed, challenged, and reimagined across various national and geographical boundaries; (3) to learn how to critically compare, contrast, and put into productive dialogue different world-views and perspectives.     

The course carries the following ICC designations:

* Themes: Power and Justice; Identities

* Perspectives: Humanities; Social Sciences

If you are interested in taking the course, and have questions, please email Evgenia Ilieva: eilieva@ithaca.edu