POL 395 - Illuminations: Politics in Dark Times

“Even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination, and that such illumination may come less from theories and concepts than from the uncertain, flickering, and often weak light that some men and women, in their lives and works, will kindle under almost all circumstances and shed over the time-span that was given them on earth.” Hannah Arendt took as her subject the darkest moments of the 20th century. Yet, she never lost faith in political action as a way to express and renew what she called “love of the world.” She wrote luminously about the darkness that comes when terror extinguishes politics and the shining, almost miraculous events of freedom through which politics is sometimes renewed. In this course, we first investigate what Arendt’s vision of politics offers efforts to comprehend and transform our political world. We turn to her as an interlocutor, not a guide, as we seek to “think what we are doing.” At her suggestion, we, second, engage the lives and works of others - thinkers, artists, organizers - diving for pearls, illuminations or themselves, assertions of freedom in action that might disrupt even seemingly inexorable political tragedies.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group II
Prerequisite(s): One Political Science course.
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Evaluate data and/or sources.
Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.