GOVT 6586 - [Schmitt, Strauss, Arendt]

(crosslisted) GERST 6586

Spring. Next Offered: 2019-2020. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Permission of instructor required.

J. A. Frank.

This is an advanced graduate seminar exploring the work of three important twentieth century political theorists: Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss, and Hannah Arendt. We will engage their work chronologically and contextually, examining how each responded, first, to the central political problems of their time, including the crisis of liberalism and parliamentary democracy, the rise of totalitarianism, statelessness, and moral and legal relativism; second, their responses to such central theoretical problems as the meaning of the political, political theology, and the distinctiveness of political theory as a form of political inquiry; and, third, their critical encounters, implicit and explicit, with each other’s work.