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On this course students will get to grips with the some of the most basic and most important questions that political thinkers have struggled with over the ages, including:

• What does it mean to come together in a political community?
• What is a politics of fear?Ìý And what might be a politics of hope?
• What is the relationship between politics and violence and war? Between politics and morality?
• How does politics balance the claims of order with the claims of liberty?
• And how can we use politics to change the world?

Through close engagement with core texts that will include Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, Schmitt, Arendt, Havel and Foucault, this module will help students come to understand the key coordinates of political experience and political activity.

Teaching Delivery

This module will be taught in one two-hour lecture per week followed by a one-hour seminar.Ìý

Indicative Topics

Indicative content based on content in 2023/24:Ìý

• The promise of politics: AristotleÌý
• Politics as action: ArendtÌý
• Politics and Ethics: MachiavelliÌý
• Politics and change: Machiavelli and HavelÌý
• Politics and fear: ÌýHobbesÌý
• Politics between revolution and slavery: LockeÌý
• Politics, order and freedom: RousseauÌý
• Politics, violence and sovereignty: SchmittÌý
• Politics and modern power: FoucaultÌý

Module aims and objectives

This course aims to:

• familiarize students with central ideas in the tradition of political thought through the study of primary texts by Aristotle, Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, Schmitt, Arendt, Havel and Foucault.Ìý
• help students understand the concepts - and their contested nature - with which thinkers have made sense of political experience, including sovereignty, authority, power, legitimacy, violence, consensus, and revolutionÌý
• immerse students in a variety of analytical approaches and perspectives: textual, contextual, comparative, critical and genealogical.Ìý
• equip students with an in-depth understanding of the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of modern political ideas and practice.Ìý

On completion of this module, students will have gained:Ìý

• A confident grasp of key theoretical concepts that underpin political thought and practice.Ìý
• Enhanced skills in critical thinking, analytical practice and in the close reading of original texts from different periods and in different genres.Ìý
• A clear sense of the historical development of political ideas and political practice.Ìý
• An enhanced ability to articulate reasoned responses to key political questions both orally and in writing.Ìý