CNM: GNHN 1122-301: Modern Legacy (Salbato)
Spring, 2011
Syllabus: General Honors 1122: Modern Legacy: Future Political Thought
Instructor: Jeff Salbato
E-mail: jsalbato@cnm.edu
Website: http://www.jeffsreadings.com
Office: WS1-201, M-F 1:30-2:30
(Please do not use voicemail)
Course meetings and final exam:
T 6:00-8:45pm in WS G-124
Final Exam: T 5/3 6:00-8:00pm
Catalog Description of Course: Introduces analysis of classic texts of Western culture from the
Renaissance through the early 20th century: ideas about the individual, society, state, history, nature,
progress and religion.
What this course is REALLY about: This course will begin by tracing the origins of our
current political ideals. We will be reading selections from Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke, Smith,
Marx, among others. This will provide the groundwork for our readings in late-modern and
contemporary political thought, with particular focus on the more radical lines of thought, from
anarchism and socialism to libertarianism. During the second half of the semester the schedule
will become more open-ended, allowing the interests of the class to direct our readings and
discussions.
Evaluation: Your grade is based on accumulated points: 100-90=A, 89-80=B, etc.
75pts. Weekly Reading Questions & Reading Responses (5 pts. each)
20pts. Teaching Day or Research Essay: Prepare a class discussion or write a paper
10pts. Final Exam: Short and medium essays for those who slacked during the term
Required Book List: (note: use the 13-digit ISBN number to find used copies online)
Fromm, Erich, The Sane Society (Holt Paperbacks) ISBN: 978-0805014020
Kropotkin, Peter, Anarchism (Dover Publications) ISBN: 978-0486419558
Recommended Reading List: (All other readings will be available, for free, online. We will
cover as many of these as you want.) Filmer’s Patriarcha, Hobbes’ Leviathan and De Cive,
Locke’s Two Treatises, Rousseau’s Origin of Inequality, Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments,
Weber’s Protestant Ethics & Spirit of Capitalism, Marx’s Alienated Labor and Communist
Manifesto, Proudhon’s What is Property, Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, Trotsky’s Essays on the
Spanish Civil War, Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man, Guerin’s Anarchism, Fanon’s Wretched
of the Earth, Chomsky’s Essays & Lectures, Luxemburg’s Essays, Rocker’s Anarcho
Syndicalism, Ellul’s Anarchy & Christianity, Ortega y Gassett’s Revolt of the Masses, Walzer’s
Sphere’s of Justice, Rawls’ Theory of Justice, Hayek’s Road to Serfdom, Albert’s Parecon, and
anything else that is relevant that you want to add to our class.
Pep Talk: Our class days will be down-to-earth discussions about our battles with these
intriguing ideas and important texts. Your homework is really just your chance to sit down with
these books and put your reactions to them on paper. If this sounds fun, then you are in the right
class. This course is supposed to be a reward for the kinds of bookworms and radicals that
would actually voluntarily enroll in a course like this.
Course Policies:
Schedule: The course’s webpage will be constantly updated with the schedule and links to the
assignments, so be sure to check it a couple of time each week to make sure you are prepared for
Tuesdays. The password for any copyrighted documents will be ______.
Reading Questions/Responses: Write a 1-2 page (single spaced) response to the readings for
that week. For most weeks I and the student teachers for that week will provide reading
questions to help guide or focus these responses. The readings and questions for each week will
be updated on the course website, so please check there for the latest materials. These will be
due Sunday night prior to that week. Points will be lost if these are late or if you don’t attend
class. Each week you will be sending your responses to me and the rest of the class. The
“teachers” will be using your ideas to plan our class discussions.
Teaching Day: You pick one of our texts or a series of essays to be in charge of preparing.
Week three is the deadline for selecting your reading topic so that we can arrange our schedule.
I will always be there to help you prepare and facilitate the discussion, so there is no need to
worry about this. Here is your multi-step task:
1) Read your selection and find reading excerpts for the class (I have plenty of texts to choose
from and borrow).
2) Create a 10-20 page reading document for the website (Please create a clean photocopy of the
pages your selections will come from and get this to me at least 10 days prior to your scheduled
teaching day. I will scan these pages and send them back to you so that you can edit them to
prepare the final document. Then you will send the final document to me via email at least a
week prior to your day so that I can post it to the class website).
3) Send me some reading questions for the website that the class can respond to when they read.
4) Comment on the students’ responses (Print out the students’ emailed responses to your
reading and make critical-yet-constructive comments on them and hand them out in class).
5) Help facilitate the class discussion of your reading (It is up to you what role you want to play
in the discussion of your topic, anything from giving a presentation to leading a discussion to
being just a participant).
Research Essay: This is YOUR class! You can do whatever you can get me to agree to (ahead
of time). Some ideas could be things like a historical/political research essay or a summary and
critique of a book not covered in our class. All I ask is that you do something that you truly are
interested in learning more about. As for how these will be graded, the two things I am most
concerned with are accuracy and clarity. Please note that each student will only need to do
EITHER the teaching day OR the research essay, not both.
Food (and Final Exam): Tue., 5/3 at 6:00pm: As you can see, there is only the need for you to
take the final exam if you have slipped up and failed to get enough points on the other
assignments. The exam will be a combination of short and medium essays worth up to 10 points
total. I will pass out the exam questions on the last day of class, and your typed answers will be
due by our final exam time. This way you can spend the actual final exam time eating and
enjoying yourself with the more conscientious students.