GOVT 3735 - [Political Freedom]

(crosslisted)
(also AMST 3735) (HB) (KCM-AS)

Spring. 4 credits.

Next offered 2013–2014.

J. Frank.

This course will explore dilemmas surrounding the concept and practice of political freedom. We will begin with an examination of traditional philosophical approaches to this issue—such as debates about free will and determinism, agency and structure, and negative and positive liberty—but we will primarily focus on how these traditional rubrics obscure our understanding of the particularity of political freedom. In order to better grasp this particularity we will explore diverse theoretical, literary, and social scientific works. Authors read may include Sophocles, Augustine, Dostoevsky, Plato, Arendt, Emerson, Dewey, Foucault, Melville, Berlin, Gaventa, and Scott.