Instructor Class Description

Time Schedule:

• Spring Quarter 2013
• Summer Quarter 2013
• Autumn Quarter 2013

Jack Turner Iii
POL S 514
Seattle Campus

Selected Topics in Political Theory

Selected topics, historical and conceptual, national, regional, and universal. Prerequisite: permission of instructor.

Class description

WINTER 2013: EXISTENTIALISM AND POLITICS. What does it mean to be a human being in a world without intrinsic meaning? What are the imperatives of life? What are the responsibilities of freedom? What are the relations of life and freedom to morality -- if there is morality? This course explores these basic questions with an eye toward developing a theory of responsible politics for late modernity. It does so through close engagement of classic and understudied "existentialist" texts: Nietzsche's GENEALOGY OF MORALS, Heidegger's BEING AND TIME, Sartre's EXISTENTIALISM IS A HUMANISM, Arendt's THE HUMAN CONDITION, and Whitman's DEMOCRATIC VISTAS.

Student learning goals

General method of instruction

Recommended preparation

Class assignments and grading

Office of the Registrar
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Modified:May 17, 2013