POL 2332
American Political Thought
Spring 2015
Baruch College, The City University of New York
9:30 – 10:45, T/TH Room 13-150
Instructor: B Lee Aultman
Email: baultman@gc.cuny.edu
URL: www.genderstrangers.wordpress.com
Office: 5-280, By Appointment Only
Course Description
American political and social relations were greatly concerned with pragmatics.
That is to say, with developing social and political institutions that closely followed
principles that were shaped and constrained by generational, technological, and
geographic contexts. Our inquiry will be hinged on such historical questions. For starters,
how did Protestant ethics during the time of John Winthrop (one of the American
colonies’ founding governors) define the nature of work and the economy, and the
negotiation between political and social life? How was this ethic already imbued with the
Enlightenment thinking that had all but transformed the entirety of Europe during the 18th
century? How did such an ethic, religious to the extreme, take into account the role of
democratic life – that of egalitarianism, collective decision-making, and representation?
And how did these founding ideological conceptions formulate what we will see as a
‘rational turn’ in American political thought – transforming from purely religious to
everyday, reason-oriented considerations of practical life?
But our inquiry does not end there. We will embark on a number of thorny and
perennial issues that still haunt contemporary American politics. Is there a democratic
life in American culture? If so, how is it distinctively American? How could have slavery
persisted in a republic built upon the principles of ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’ – one of
natural rights and grand narratives of liberty? And even after the abolition of slavery,
how did that institution affect political, economic, and social life for centuries to come?
Could democracy as those now long-dead citizens knew it, and as we knot it, withstand
the frontal assault on the economic depravation caused by racial, ethnic, and gendered
status?
America was and still is confronted with these intertwining issues: that of race
and gender, technology and capitalism, and the exclusionary practices of political
economy. Throughout the course, we will explore questions of citizenship and, relatedly,
the political and social meanings that term deploys. Who counts as citizens, and to what
purposes do such definitions attend? We will end by looking at the aftermath, and the
ongoing effect of, the Civil Rights Movement and its queer counterparts.
Required Texts
1. Dolbeare, Kenneth. American Political Thought. Recent Edition. (Purchase online)
2. Additional course readings will be available on Blackboard.
Course Expectations
Students are expected to come prepared to each class ready for an open discussion of the
readings. Classroom time will be based in large part upon active discussion of the
readings. You are encouraged to bring your book and required readings to class.
Course Requirements
Attendance (10%): Attendance sheets will be passed around each day.
Midterm (30%) and Final Exams (30%): Exams will be essay-based. Two essay
prompts will be distributed a week before each test. One essay prompt will be chosen.
The final will NOT be cumulative.
Reading Summaries (30%): You will be responsible for a 300-500 word summary of
any readings for each scheduled class of a given week. You will upload your summaries
to a discussion thread that I will create on BLACKBOARD. It is your responsibility to
upload these summaries by 9:00 pm the night before each class: that means Monday
and Wednesday nights. They are time stamped, and will not receive credit if they are
late.
The summaries should address the following questions: What was the author’s thesis?
What did the author give in terms of evidence for that thesis? What were the author’s
conclusions? Do you find the arguments convincing? Why or why not?
Tentative Reading List
Thursday, Jan 29: Introduction to the Syllabus
Part 1: European Political Philosophy
Tuesday, Feb. 3: What is the State?
Hobbes, “Leviathan” Blackboard
Thursday, Feb. 5: What is Enlightenment and Liberalism?
Kant, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” Blackboard
Tuesday, Feb. 10: The Social Contract: Individuality and Freedom
Locke, “Second Treatise of Government” Blackboard
Rousseau, “The Social Contract” Blackboard
Part 2: The ‘Founding’ Era
Thursday, Feb. 12: NO CLASS
Tuesday, Feb. 17: Protestants and their Compacts
Mayflower Compact (Agreement) Blackboard
Wise, “Democracy is Founded in Scripture” (Dolbeare)
Winthrop, "Christian Experience" Blackboard
Thursday, Feb 19: Liberties in a Religious World Order
Winthrop, "A Model of Christian Charity" Blackboard; "A Little Speech on Liberty"
(Dolbeare)
Tuesday, Feb. 24: The Rational Turn: Protestant Ethics and the Rationalization of
Government
Weber, “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” Blackboard
Franklin (Dolbeare – All Selections)
Thursday, Feb. 26: Vitalizing Independence in a Colony
Zinn, “A Kind of Revolution” Blackboard
Paine, “Common Sense” (Dolbeare)
S. Adams “The Rights of the Colonists” (Dolbeare)
J. Adams, “Thoughts on Government” (Dolbeare)
Tuesday, March 3: Revolution and Independence: Ideology as Institution
Declaration of Independence
The Constitution of the United States
Thursday, March 5: Constitutional Philosophy: Federalist Papers
(All FEDERALIST PAPERS are available at
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fedpapers.html)
Federalist Papers: 1, 9, and 10
Tuesday, March 10: The Federalist Papers and Federalism
40 through 46 (Federalism)
Thursday, March 12: The Federalist Papers and Separation of Powers
51 (Separation of Powers)
Tuesday, March 17: The Federalist Papers and Political Institutions
55 through 57 (House or Representatives)
62 through 63 (The Senate),
68 through 70 (The President)
78 (The Judiciary)
Thursday, March 19: The Role of Government in a Manufacture Economy: The
Political Economy of Citizenship
Hamilton (Dolbeare – all selections)
Jefferson (Dolbeare – all selections)
Tuesday, March 24: The Courts and their Role in Rethinking Federal Government
Marbury v. Madison (Dolbeare)
McCulloch v. Maryland (Dolbeare)
Thursday, March 26: MIDTERM EXAM
Part 3: Democracy and Social Change
Tuesday, March 31: A Fledgling Democracy: Liberalism and the Fascination of the
French
Tocqueville, “Democracy in America”, Blackboard
April 2: NO CLASS (Western Political Science Association Conference)
April 7: NO CLASS (Spring Recess)
April 9: NO CLASS (Spring Recess)
Tuesday, April 14: The Transcendentalist Concept of Individuality and its Critics
Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” (Dolbeare)
James, “What is Pragmatism?” Blackboard
Thursday, April 16: Ante/Post-Bellum Politics
Lincoln (Dolbeare – All Selections)
Calhoun, A Disquisition on Government (Dolbeare)
Fitzhugh, Cannibals All! (Dolbeare)
Tuesday, April 21: Defining Equality in a Divided Republic
Civil War Constitutional Amendments: 13th, 14th, 15th
Stanton, (Dolbeare – all selections)
Douglass, (Dolbeare – all selections)
Thursday, April 23: Towards Progressive Black Voice(s)
DuBois, "The Futures of the Negro Race in America." Blackboard and “The Souls of
Black Folks (Dolbeare)
Tuesday, April 28: Progressivism and its Critics
Croly, The Promise of American Life (Dolbeare)
Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (Dolbeare)
Sumner, What the Social Classes Owe Each Other (Dolbeare)
Thursday, April 30: Socialism in America?
Brownson, “The Laboring Classes” (Dolbeare)
Marx, “The Communist Manifesto” Blackboard
Lochner v. New York, Blackboard
Tuesday, May 5: Social Welfare for Whom? The ‘Definition’ of Equality
Roosevelt, (Dolbeare, All Selections)
Katznelson, “When Affirmative Action was White” Blackboard
Thursday, May 7: Activism and the Black Nationalist Movement
King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” Blackboard
X, “The Ballot or the Bullet?” Blackboard
Part 4: The Contemporary Problems of Race, Gender, and Sexuality
Tuesday, May 12: Institutions of Racism in a ‘Post Civil Rights’ Era
Alexander, “The New Jim Crow” Blackboard
Thursday, May 14: The State, Sexuality, and Gender Identity
Canaday, “The Straight State” Blackboard
Spade, “Compliance is Gendered” Blackboard
Final Exam: TBA