AMST 6585

American Political Thought

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2022-2023.

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)

When Offered Fall.

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