Selections in Modern Political Thought

This graduate-level seminar explores selections from the canon of Western political thought from the late fifteenth through nineteenth centuries. Throughout the course, we will engage in close textual readings of individual thinkers and consider some of the larger questions raised by political modernity. This offering will focus on Western political thought from the Renaissance through the turn of the 20th century. Thinkers covered will include: Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Karl Marx, among others.