SHUM 6627 - Disobedience, Resistance, Refusal

Fall. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Enrollment limited to: 15 students. Not open to: undergraduates. Co-meets with AMST 4626/GOVT 4626/PHIL 4427/SHUM 4627.

A. Livingston.

This seminar surveys contemporary political theories of disobedience and resistance. We will examine liberal, republican, and radical perspectives on the logic of political protest, its functions, justifications, and limits, as well as how transformations in law, economy, and technology are redefining dissent in the twenty-first century. Topics to be discussed will include the terms of political obligation, the relationship between law-breaking and law-making, conceptions of justice, resistance and popular sovereignty, the politics of civility, violence and self-defense, public space and privatization, the digitalization of protest, resistance in non-democratic regimes, as well as deviance and refusal as modes of dissent.

For longer description and instructor bio please visit http://societyhumanities.as.cornell.edu/courses.