PLM4390 - Grand Theories of Politics

Leader: Michael Janover

Offered

Clayton First semester 2007 (Day)

Synopsis

Selected topics in the history of political thought, including the nature of epic or grand theories of politics and the role of various forms of moral, religious, scientific, and metaphysical thinking in such theories. Texts and arguments considered are of two kinds:

1. models of construction and deconstruction of the history of Western political and philosophical thought in writings of Heidegger, Arendt and Strauss;
2. conceptions of knowledge, power and morality, culture and civilisation in the thinking of Socrates, Plato, Machiavelli, Rousseau and Nietzsche.

Assessment

Essay (6000 words): 50%
Examination (3 hours): 50%

Contact hours

2 hours (1 x 2 hour seminar) per week