GOVT 6525

Contemporary Political Theory & Its Histories

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2019-2020.

What is the relationship of history to the practice of contemporary political theory? What role does attention to history—or its neglect—play in the reproduction and contestation of theoretical authority? What is the relationship between the history of political thought (whatever that is!) and other modes of historical research and writing? What relevance might methodological disputes among historians (of political thought and of other things) have for theoretical engagement with the present? What light do the histories of academic institutions, of the disciplines, and of canon-formation shed on contemporary theoretical practice? This graduate seminar will consider these and related issues through an idiosyncratic and selective survey of important recent work in the field, chosen and supplemented with an eye toward the disclosure of its own historical contexts, and toward the critical evaluation of its investments in, stances toward, and, sometimes, disavowals of history.

When Offered Fall.

Course Subfield (PT)

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