Seminar Affirmation and Critique Political thinking in Modernity a critical reading course

The advent of modernity has undoubtedly brought forth a new phenomenon: politics as a sphere distinguished from other areas of social life. While in prior societies the management of the affairs of society was enmeshed with religion and traditional power(s) modernity is distinguished most clearly by seemingly rational notions of how to guide public affairs. A series of seminal thinkers has developed unique approaches that mark our understanding of politics until today. Knowledge of these will allow students of politics to construe the genealogies and to develop a critical understanding of modern political thinking. There is no single idea of 'politics'. Therefore in the seminar we will engage with a broad variety of thinkers and their standpoints so as to obtain an understanding of the breadth of (often conflicting) views as to the 'true' nature of politics and to see how the reflection on politics has evolved in modern capitalism. The course is intended to work as an adapted Oxford style tutorial. This means that a considerable amount of reading will have to be done in preparing for the sessions (all of the reading materials will be put on ILIAS and a reader will be available at a copyshop to be indicated on 12.04.2011. The materials in preparation for the first 6 sessions are already online). Every student has to prepare a short essay of 2 to 3 pages for each philosopher to be handed in to the lecturer including a bibliography (format: one and a half spaces, 12-point font). Further information on the set-up of the essays and additional hints on academic writing will be handed out and discussed during the first session. Please make sure to be there, otherwise notify me in advance. It is expected that several students present their essays each week followed by a group discussion that is to explore contents, meanings and possibly diverging interpretations of each text. Students wanting to obtain credits will have to present a final essay based on the writings elaborated for the class sessions by 31st July, 2011 (format: one and a half spaces, 12-point font; worth 6 GPE credits (20-25) pages). Week FB 05 Gesellschaftswissenschaften Uni Kassel SoSe 2011 Stubbe Lars