Listed in: Political Science, as POSC-337
Jared Loggins (Section 01)
In this course we explore historical and contemporary discontents of liberal democracy through the lens of racial and economic injustice in the United States. The constitutional principle of equality on which liberal democracy is based seeks both to protect the rights of minorities and to enable its citizens to realize their full potential. However, persisting racial and economic injustices expose the project’s fragility and raise questions about whether its procedural and structural foundations are sufficient to accomplish these goals. Our exploration is informed by several questions: What is liberal democracy? Is liberal democracy the form in the best position to secure human flourishing? If not, what form or forms are? What do the racial and economic injustices within our democracy tell us about the meaning of “the people” and dissent, core features of liberal democratic thought? To what normative (i.e. ideal or desirable) standards of democracy should we aspire? Through close reading of a diverse group of thinkers including Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Claudia Jones, Sheldon Wolin, Saidiya Hartman, Iris Marion Young, Nancy Fraser, Will Clare Roberts, Lawrie Balfour, Toni Morrison, Jason Frank, Cedric Robinson, among others, we will explore liberal democracy’s limitations as well as how it can be reconstructed to more effectively embody its ideals.
Requisite: At least one POSC course (200 level or above). Sophomores and above. Not open to first year students. Limited to 20 students. Fall semester. Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor Loggins.
Section 01
W 03:00 PM - 05:45 PM BARR 102
This is preliminary information about books for this course. Please contact your instructor or the Academic Coordinator for the department, before attempting to purchase these books.
| ISBN | Title | Publisher | Author(s) | Comment | Book Store | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality | Liveright | Danielle Allen | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| The Two Faces of American Empire | Harvard University Press | Aziz Rana | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| From slavery to the cooperative commonwealth : labor and republican liberty in the nineteenth century | Cambridge University Press | Alex Gourevitch | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America | Oxford University Press | Saidiya V. Hartman | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| To 'joy my freedom : Southern Black women's lives and labors after the Civil War | Harvard University Press | Tera W. Hunter | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Abolition democracy : beyond empire, prisons, and torture | Seven Stories Press | Angela Davis | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| W. E. B. Du Bois and the Critique of the Competitive Society | University of Georgia Press | Andrew Douglas | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Undoing the demos : neoliberalism's stealth revolution | Zane Books | Wendy Brown | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Wayward lives, beautiful experiments : intimate histories of social upheaval | W.W. Norton | Saidiya Hartman | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Disagreement : politics and philosophy | University of Minnesota Press | Jacques Rancière | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Worldmaking after empire : the rise and fall of self-determination | Princeton University Press | Adom Getachew | Amherst Books | TBD |
These books are available locally at Amherst Books.