Office: ELA 335
Office Hours: TBA & by appointment
Texas State University Academic Schedule
Texas State University Final Exam Schedule
Schedule of Classes @ Texas State University

Selected Web Resources For Texas State University
Texas State University Library
Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library
The Center for Multicultural and Gender Studies @ Texas State University

Course Description & Purpose:
This course is an introduction to fundamental ideas of the Western political tradition  It includes consideration of: democracy; political leadership; morality and politics; realism, power, and the State; community; as well as perspectives on the questions of gender, diversity, and individual, group, and cultural identity.  These ideas will be considered through analysis of some portions or all of the politically significant classics written by Thucydides (with some discussion of classical Greek civilization), Niccolò Machiavelli (viewed from different perspectives), and Edmund Burke. 

The spirit of free inquiry which informs this course will be examined, in part, through a brief consideration of the life and a small segment of the work of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the 17th century New Spain/Mexican nun referred to by many scholars as one of the great poets of the Spanish language.  Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was famous in her own day in both New Spain/Mexico and Old Spain for her fierce defense of intellectual freedom, the uninhibited pursuit of knowledge, and the right of women engaged in intellectual pursuit to be heard.  In our own day, her work has received renewed attention.

Contributions of modern thinkers and others who have examined these ideas will also be studied.  These authors include the well known contemporary political thinkers Kwame Appiah (Ghana/the ethics of identity and observations on multiculturalism), Hanna Pitkin (American/author of the classic study of Machiavelli from the perspective of gender), and Amartya Sen (India/Nobel Prize in Economics - his observations on multiculturalism and "the clash of civilizations").

Students will also read Mariano Azuela's classic novel of the Mexican Revolution.  Other thinkers whose views will be considered are Harriet Taylor [Mill] (British/pioneering feminist) and Mary Wollstonecraft (British/intellectual dispute with Edmund Burke on the neglect of women in his writings). 

In addition to the materials described above, where appropriate, recommended works are noted in this syllabus.

The purpose of this course is to familarize students with a variety of views and perspectives on critical issues in the Western political tradition.  As indicated above, these include a variety of perspectives on the questions of gender, diversity, and individual, group, and cultural identity.

Attendance
1. Six (6) unexcused absences are permitted.  Students with seven (7) unexcused absences will have their course grade lowered by one letter grade.  Students who have eight (8) unexcused absences will have their course grade lowered by two letter grades.  No unexcused absences beyond eight (8) are permitted.  Any student who has more than eight absences is likely to fail the course and, therefore, should withdraw from the course.
2. The instructor for the course is not responsible for bringing students who have missed class "up-to-date" on missed material.  Each student has the responsibility to remain current with respect to class material.

Exams and Grading There will be two or more exams during the semester, one or more of which will be essay.  In addition, there will be an essay exam for the final exam.  No make-up exams will be given.  Grades will be determined by student performance on exams.

Academic Honesty Statement @ Texas State University  Please see: http://www.txstate.edu/effective/upps/upps-07-10-01.html.
For an excerpt from this statement see the end of this syllabus.
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Note On Course & Syllabus Materials: Students may find books, articles, links, websites, and other materials provided in this syllabus useful and of interest. Their listing in this syllabus, including those which are required and recommended, does not necessarily indicate endorsement of or agreement with any views or positions on any issues found in these materials, websites, or on other sites to which they may provide links.

REQUIRED BOOKS

*Edmund Burke,           Reflections on the Revolution in France
(Society & Tradition)      [1790]  (Penguin Edition)

Niccolò Machiavelli,      The Prince (New American Library or Mentor - With Introduction by Christian Gauss)
(Power)                          (Completed in 1513/Published in 1532)

*Thucydides                 The Peloponnesian War
(Morality & Power)        [5th century, B.C.E/First English Translation in 1550]
                                     (Penguin Classics, Warner Translation - With Introduction by M. I. Finley)
Note: A study guide for the Finley Introduction to Thucydides (pp. 9-32), The Peloponnesian War is accessible directly @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/Finley.htm or @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.  Scroll to the section on "Political Ideas" and click on the "Finley Study Guide" link.  The Finley Study Guide is located in a password protected area.  Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

TOPICS FOR LECTURE, READING, & DISCUSSION

For a non-Western view of the idea of a "classic", see:
Edward Rothstein/Centuries of Fleeting Moments, Timeless on the Page/NYT/October 21, 2006
"We think we know books, and the imposing entrance of the New York Public Library reminds us of their weighty and solemn importance. In the great traditions of the West, the book is a foundation upon which mighty edifices of knowledge are constructed. But if you pass through the lobby to the library’s main exhibition hall and gallery, something else is revealed.

Though the cases of carefully displayed books will at first look familiar, soon enough expectations dissolve into astonishment. The exhibition here — 'Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan' — revels in an alternate tradition of literacy. The show is exquisite and enchanting, and, like every fine exhibition, seems to open up a new world to our gaze.  (boldface added)

'Ehon' means, roughly, “illustrated book,” but here the illustrations are not (for the most part) meant for children. Nor are they meant to be accessories to the text, making abstract language visually concrete. Many of these books are also not meant to be bound collections of free-standing artworks. In fact, instead of providing narrative tales or examining accumulated knowledge like the great texts of the Western traditions, most do something very different.

2. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz [1648-1695]
Passion for Learning & A Woman's Right to a Life of the Mind, Intellectual Freedom, A Public Voice for Women.

Admonishment [of Sor Juana] The Letter of Sor Philothea de la Cruz/November 25, 1690-Puebla de los Angeles
Sor Philothea was the psuedonym of the Bishop of Puebla.  In his letter to Sor Juana in which he urges her to turn to religious pursuits and abandon her studies and writings, he assumed the name of a nun.

"The problems are many, and come from various quarters. How far in fact were women in classical Athens secluded, let alone silent, and was their status exceptional or the norm in the Greek world? Were the so-called "sacred laws" respecting sacerdotal matters something distinct from, or an integral part of, the whole body of legal precedent governing the city-state? Do the remarkably independent-minded women ... who inhabit Greek drama have a basis in reality, or are they simply the fantasies of their male creators? Were women in fact admitted as spectators to the plays in which such figures appeared? To what extent did temple service extend a woman's domestic situation into the public domain? Do modern theories of gender oppression distort rather than clarify a Greek woman's motives in assuming a priesthood? Perhaps most important of all, how far has our sense of the ritual, the functions, even the terminology of Greek religion been affected by Judeo-Christian monotheistic assumptions, not least in the matter of goddesses and their cults?  ...
...
Financially and legally, a free Athenian woman was neither autonomous nor regarded as legally competent: that is, capable of managing her own own affairs or making her own decisions. All financial deals involving more than the cost of a sack of barley were denied her. She spent her entire life under the control of a kyrios ('master,' 'possessor'), usually her father or husband.

There were other restrictions, but these were the main ones, and the important thing is to determine how far, and in what way, the findings of Connelly and those scholars who share her beliefs modify the overall picture. To begin with, it is clear that Athens was extremely patriarchal even by contemporary standards: in Sparta, Thessaly, Boeotia, and many of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, women enjoyed considerably more freedom, in particular as regards property rights. Secondly, and predictably, Athenian women showed considerable ingenuity at manipulating the rules from behind the scenes: the banker Pasion's widow Archippe exploited the gray areas in estate and citizenship laws with dazzling acumen. Their modestly silent seclusion, too, has certainly been exaggerated: not all the gossiping housewives in the marketplace were slaves or aliens, and it is virtually certain that women attended theatrical performances: no ancient source denies this, and several strongly suggest it.

Web Site Of Interest:
TheAncient City Of Athens: Images

2.   Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War

Readings: Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War.
Read Introduction by M. I. Finley, pp 9-32. Read through all of Book I, and read with special care Thucydides own "Introduction", pp. 35-49; "The Dispute over Corcyra", pp. 53-67; "The Debate at Sparta and Declaration of War", pp. 72-87; and "The Spartan Ultimatum and Pericles Reply", pp. 118-123.
Note: A study guide for the Finley Introduction to Thucydides (pp. 9-32), The Peloponnesian War is accessible directly @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/Finley.htm or @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.  Scroll to the section on "Political Ideas" and click on the "Finley Study Guide" link.  The Finley Study Guide is located in a password protected area.  Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

Simon Stow's article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.  Scroll to the section on "Political Ideas" and look for "Stow: Pericles at Gettysburg and Ground Zero".  This location is password protected.  Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

Recommended:
For differing interpretations of Thucydides' account of The Melian Dialogue and his views on power, hubris, weakness, security, tyranny, self interest, and related issues, see:
Richard Ned Lebow, "The Paranoia of the Powerful: Thucydides on World War III", PS, Winter 1984, Vol. XVII, No. 1, pp. 10-17.
Texas State University permalink.  A valid Texas State University User Name and password are required for access.
See also:
"An Exchange on The Paranoia of the Powerful: Thucydides on World War III", PS, Summer 1984, Vol. XVII, No. 3, pp. 585-596. 
This exchange includes: William T. Bluhm, "Hybris and Aggression: A Critique of Lebow's Paranoia of the Powerful and an Alternative Theory", pp. 585-591.
Richard Ned Lebow, "Thucydides and Aggression: A Reply to Professor Bluhm", pp. 591-594.
Barry S. Strauss, "Thucydides on the Insecurity of Tyranny: A Comment on Professors Lebow and Bluhm", pp. 594-596.
William T. Bluhm, "Thucydides on the Insecurity of Tyranny: A Comment on Professors Lebow and Bluhm: A Response", p. 596.
These materials can be accessed @ http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.txstate.edu/stable/i217321.  Scroll down to the articles listed immediately above.
Texas State University permalink.  A valid Texas State University User Name and password are required for access.

Walter Russell Mead, "Is Fear The Father Of Us All?", The American Interest,  February 14, 2011 @ http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/02/14/is-fear-the-father-of-us-all/

Guy Gugliotta/The Ancient (Greek) Mechanics and How They Thought/NYT April 1, 2008
LAW OF THE LEVER On triremes, the midships oarsmen were the most effective.
Image of the ancient Greek trireme

Web Sites Of Interest:
TheHistoryGuide:Thucydides

3.  A Critique of Thucydides by Marshall Sahlins: Explanation Based On Universal Human Motivations or Particularities of Separate Cultures?
Marshall Sahlins/Apologies to Thucydides: Understanding History as Culture and Vice Versa (University of Chicago Press 2004)

For an excerpt from Sahlins' book in which he challenges Thucydides' approach to history, see: Baseball is Society, Played as a Game

For more on Marshall Sahlins, see:
http://anthropology.uchicago.edu/faculty/faculty_sahlins.shtml

For more on the question of explanation based on universal human motivations and an analysis of Thucydides' view of the "unique Athenian character" stemming from "an unprecedented liberation of certain impulses of human nature", see:
Steven Forde, "Thucydides On the Causes Of Athenian Imperialism", American Political Science Review, June 1986, Vol. 80, No. 2, pp. 433-448.
Abstract
"Thucydides' investigation of Athenian imperialism is in part an investigation into whether imperialism as such is based on universal human compulsions, and hence cannot simply be condemned.  It is generally recognized that for Thucydides, Athenian imperialism is connected to the Athenian national character, but it has not been widely appreciated that Thucydides provides a detailed account of the foundations of the Athenian character in human nature itself.  That account revolves around what he calls 'daring' and the human impulse of eros. The erotic and daring character of the Athenians is connected by Thucydides both to the unique democracy of the city and to its unique experience in the Persian Wars.  The unique Athenian character stems from an unprecedented liberation of certain impulses of human nature.  This produces Athenian imperialism and dynamism, but also destroys the city in time."  (boldface added)

Note:  Steven Forde's article is also referred to above in regard to Pericles' Funeral Oration and Athenian imperialism.
See: Steven Forde, "Thucydides On the Causes Of Athenian Imperialism", American Political Science Review, June 1986, Vol. 80, No. 2, pp. 433-448.
Texas State University permalink.  A valid Texas State University User Name and password are required for access.

This article is accessible @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.  A valid Texas State University student ID and user name are required.

Web Sites Of Interest:
Machiavelli/classicallibrary.org
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I focus on areas of contestation where a sensitivity to cultural traditions has been employed to deny women their rights or principles of gender equality have been used as a reason to ban cultural practices, and I draw on a growing feminist literature that sees the deconstruction of culture as the way forward in addressing tensions between gender equality and cultural diversity. My own approach is closest to those who have noted the selective way culture is employed to explain behaviour in non-Western societies or among individuals from racialised minority groups, and the implied contrast with rational, autonomous (Western) individuals, whose actions are presumed to reflect moral judgments, and who can be held individually responsible for those actions and beliefs. This binary approach to cultural difference is neither helpful nor convincing. The basic contention throughout is that multiculturalism can be made compatible with the pursuit of gender equality and women’s rights so long as it dispenses with an essentialist understanding of culture. I have somewhat polemically described my project as a multiculturalism without culture."

Listen to Anne Phillips on Multiculturalism
Should members of a minority group be left to lead their lives as they see fit, even where their values differ from those of the majority? Anne Phillips, author of a recent book on multiculturalism, addresses the difficult question of how people from different cultures can live together without conflict.
Direct download: PhillipsMulti.MP3  July 03, 2007 (about 20 minutes)

But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert D. Putnam -- famous for Bowling Alone, his 2000 book on declining civic engagement -- has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.

In other words, those in more diverse communities may do more bowling alone, but the creative tensions unleashed by those differences in the workplace may vault those same places to the cutting edge of the economy and of creative culture.

Page calls it the 'diversity paradox.' He thinks the contrasting positive and negative effects of diversity can coexist in communities, but 'there's got to be a limit.' If civic engagement falls off too far, he says, it's easy to imagine the positive effects of diversity beginning to wane as well. 'That's what's unsettling about his findings, Page says of Putnam's new work."  (boldface added)

The novel Brick Lane has it detractors who charge that London's Bangladeshis who live in the Brick Lane area are not accurately portrayed in the novel.  The filming of the novel has brought this concern to public attention.  The debate illustrates the various dimensions and issues that are sometimes involved in the larger question of multiculturalism.  The heated debate that has developed is described by Alan Cowell/In London, a New East-West Skirmish/NYT/August 05, 2006. 

In his article Alan Cowell notes:

"In some ways, the debate has revived a much wider discussion in Europe about whether free speech may be limited by the sensitivities of people who feel affronted by it.  Should old Western societies, in other words, rewrite their definitions of liberty to accommodate the sensitivities of others?

At its most extreme and violent, the dispute flared this year in the Islamic protests against the publication in Denmark of cartoons lampooning the prophet Muhammad. The same question drove protests in the English city of Birmingham in December 2004, when 'Behzti', a play by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, the British-born daughter of Sikh immigrants, was canceled after Sikhs said it insulted their faith.  One month earlier, Theo van Gogh, an outspoken Dutch filmmaker, was shot dead in the Netherlands by a man the police described as a Muslim extremist.  And, of course, the broader issue of faith-versus-freedom found its modern wellspring in the fatwa declared against Mr. Rushdie by Ayatollah Ruhollah_Khomeini in 1989 because of his novel 'Satanic Verses'.

But this latest dispute, said Abdus Salique, the local business leader who marshaled support against the filming of 'Brick Lane', is different, related not to religion but to a sense among the area’s Bengali residents and traders that the years of effort that made their neighborhood an icon of east London were now in jeopardy.  The book, and the film of it, Mr. Salique said, sully the identity of those Bengalis from the Sylhet region of Bangladesh who made Brick Lane part of the London tourist circuit and center of Bangladeshi culture."

The debate over Brick Lane has included exchanges between prominent literary figures such as Salman Rushdie and Germaine Greer.

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Learning and teaching take place best in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom and openness. All members of the academic community are responsible for supporting freedom and openness through rigorous personal standards of honesty and fairness. Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty undermine the very purpose of the university and diminish the value of an education.
Academic Offenses
Students who have committed academic dishonesty, which includes cheating on an examination or other academic work to be submitted, plagiarism, collusion, or abuse of resource materials, are subject to disciplinary action.
a. Academic work means the preparation of an essay, thesis, report, problem assignments, or other projects which are to be submitted for purposes of grade determination.
b. Cheating means:
1. Copying from another students test paper, laboratory report, other report or computer files, data listing, and/or programs.
2. Using materials during a test unauthorized by person giving test.
3. Collaborating, without authorization, with another person during an examination or in preparing academic work.
4. Knowingly, and without authorization, using, buying, selling, stealing, transporting, soliciting, copying, or possessing, in whole or part, the content of an unaministered test.
5. Substituting for another studentor permitting another person to substitute for oneself in taking an exam or preparing academic work.
6. Bribing another person to obtain an unadministered test or information about an unadministered test.
c. Plagiarism means the appropriation of another's work and the unacknowledged incorporation of that work in ones own written work offered for credit.
d. Collusion means the unauthorized collaboration with another person in preparing written work offered for credit.
e. Abuse of resource materials means the mutilation, destruction, concealment, theft or alteration of materials provided to assist students in the mastery of course materials.
Penalties for Academic Dishonesty
Students who have committeed academic dishonesty may be subject to:
a. Academic penalty including one or more of the following when not inconsistent:
1. A requirement to perform additional academic work not required of other students in the course;
2. Required to withdraw from the course with a grade of F.
3. A reduction to any level grade in the course, or on the exam or other academic work affected by the academic dishonesty.
b. Disciplinary penalty including any penalty which may be imposed in a student disciplinary hearing pursuant to this Code of Conduct.

      This statement is taken from  the Texas State University Student Handbook. The complete statement, including student rights, can be accessed @
http://www.txstate.edu/effective/upps/upps-07-10-01.html.
 
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