Education as Self-Fashioning: The Democratic Citizen

A democracy seeks to aggregate the diverse and conflicting views of individuals into collective policy. How does this work, in theory and in practice? How have individuals thought about this process and their own roles within it, and how has that reflection shaped their lives as democratic citizens? In this course, we will study the history of democracy and democratic thought, from Ancient Greece and Rome to the modern world. We will consider how thinkers ancient and modern sought to fashion themselves into democratic citizens, and we will compare these ideals to the realities of democratic government in practice. Through a variety of philosophical and empirical readings, we will explore the fundamental challenges of democracy and discuss how we see them playing out today.