GOVT 6585 - American Political Thought

(crosslisted) AMST 6585

Fall. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Permission of instructor required.

J.A. Frank.

This course is a graduate seminar that examines a selection of important texts that have helped shape and contest the political idea—and the political ideals—of America, placing particular emphasis on the dissenting traditions of American political thought. Beginning with a sermon delivered to Puritans on their way to the “New World,” and ending with a seminal debate between John Dewey and Walter Lippman over the very possibility of democratic self-rule in the modern age, the course will emphasize how intellectual argument in America has shaped—and been shaped by—the larger political culture of which it is a part. We will place particular emphasis on four significant periods in American political history: Puritan New England, the Revolution and Founding, Abolition and Civil War, and the Progressive Era. (PT) (PT)