GOVT 3566 - [Critical Theories of Power]

(GB) (CA-AS, SCD-AS)

Spring. Not offered: 2023-2024. Next offered: 2024-2025. 4 credits. Student option grading.

B. Adalet.

This seminar will provide an overview of four key figures in political theory: Marx, Gramsci, Foucault, and Fanon. The focal theme of the course is power. Some of the questions we will grapple with include: What is the relationship between state and society, between power and knowledge, between intellectuals and the people? Is history driven by ideas or economic forces? What is the meaning of exploitation? How are consent and coercion reproduced, and which is more effective? Does power enable or obstruct consciousness of one’s condition? What are the constitutive effects of power on subject formation? What does revolution look like? These texts are rich, and so a wide range of concepts are engaged with, including class formation and class struggle, alienation, dialectics, ideology, hegemony, discourse, subjectivity, and emancipation. (PT)