This course will explore the themes of freedom and citizenship in ancient, early-modern, and contemporary political thought. The three-week seminar will dedicate one week each to ancient Greek texts, 17th and 18th century texts in the Anglo-American political tradition (including American national founding documents), and 19^th and 20th century texts that bring the issues of earlier works into a contemporary American context. The texts are a mixture of literary, philosophical, and political documents. The overarching aim of the course is to equip students with critical tools with which to evaluate and participate in contemporary civic life. The attention to the theme of citizenship, in particular, aims to stimulate in students a consciousness of themselves as political agents in a democratic society. ORIENTATION – Education for what?

• Plato, “The Allegory of the Cave” in Republic
• Mary Wollstonecraft, The Vindication of the Rights of Women, CH 4, 12
• Mahatma Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, XVIII
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar”
• Martha Nussbaum, Not for Profit, CH 2

WEEK ONE – Antiquity

1. Introductions
   • Plato, The Trial and Death of Socrates, “Euthyphro”
2. Citizen and the State I
   • Plato, The Trial and Death of Socrates, “Apology”
3. Citizen and the State II
   • Plato, The Trial and Death of Socrates, “Crito, Phaedo”
4. Politics
   • Aristotle, Politics, I.I – I.VI, III.I, III.V – III.IX
5. Democracy
   • Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, “Pericles’ Funeral Oration” and “Account of the Plague”

WEEK TWO – Political Enlightenment

1. Social Contract I
   • Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapters 13, 14.1-6, 15.1-4
2. Social Contract II
   • John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Book II Chapters 1-5, 8, 18
3. Social Contract III
   • Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, Book I
   • Thomas Jefferson, “Declaration of Independence”
   • The Constitution of the United States of America
4. Douglass
   • Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of an American Slave
   • Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
5. Lincoln
   • Abraham Lincoln, House Divided Speech
   • Lincoln, First and Second Inaugurals
   • Lincoln, Address at Gettysburg
   • Lincoln, Fragment on Slavery

WEEK THREE – The American Experience

1. Race and Gender
   • W.E.B. Du Bois, from The Souls of Black Folk, “Forethought” v-vi, “Of Our Spiritual Strivings”
   • Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South, “Our Raison D’Etre,” (i-ii), “Woman Versus the Indian,” (pp. 116-126)
   • Seneca Falls Conference, “The Declaration of Sentiments”
2. Immigration and Citizenship
   • Randolph Bourne, “Trans-National America”
   • Saum Song Bo, “A Chinese View of the Statue of Liberty
3. Liberalisms
   • Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The Economic Bill of Rights”
   • John Dewey, Intelligence in the Modern World, “The Meaning and Office of Liberalism”
   • Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, Chapter 1
4. The Freedom Movement
   • Martin Luther King, Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
   • Ella Baker, “Bigger than a Hamburger”
5. Democracy and Education
   • Aristotle, Politics VIII.I-III
   • James Baldwin, “A Talk to Teachers”

WRITING ASSIGNMENT: After each reading assignment, you will write a paragraph in response to the readings. You will submit these responses to your Professor and Academic Teaching Assistant every day. Your Teaching Assistants will guide you in how to organize these responses. At the end of the course, you will use these exercises to produce a paper of two to three pages that reflects on the course as a whole.