NODE.801 Obsolete Syllabus B. Ricardo Brown, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Cultural Studies Pratt Institute   BRBrownIII@earthlink.net R Retrurn to the Course Materials Page

B. Ricardo Brown, Ph.D.

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Catalog Description  

 This is a an examination of the theory and operation of the major types of political systems. The course focuses on the question of power as it extends from the state to daily life. Both formal and informal, sanctioned and unsanctioned modes of political expression will receive attention.   

Course Description

When I last offered this course, the subject matter addressed the origins of political institutions and developed an understanding of that political institutions are not just the obvious ones, but that the family, community, even the individual should also be considered political institutions. In part, that emphasis was determined by the prevailing politics of the day, which centered on family values on the conservative side and the emphasis by moderates on obligation to community.   

This semester, the course will focus on political institutions again in light of current politics. Specifically, the circumstance of an election during wartime. So this semester special emphasis will be placed on discourse and rhetoric as the mediation between the state and war. If politics is warfare carried on by other means, then it is also true that war is politics carried out by other means. “War is peace and peace is war” was how Orwell put it, but one did not have to wait until 1984. This basic construction is immanent in the theory and practice of the State and of war.

Oration is a tactic and a strategy of war and of politics: to speak is to struggle. If we speak freely, then we act. With speech comes forms of rationality (or ways of making sense of the world else speech would not communicate any meaning), so the course will also focus on decision-making by institutions in a state of crisis. We will use two historical events as case studies: the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Apollo XIII disaster to examine modes of decision making and analysis.       

Course Requirements   

Class Participation

Education is not a one way street and we can not expect to simply passively receive knowledge. Participation is mandatory and will be factored into the final grade.   

Contention Cards

Participants are expected to prepare a short statement on the readings for each class. The statement should address some aspect of the readings that you found interesting, troubling, questionable, or it may be a more general comment.

A) This statement should be legibly written on a standard 3x5 index card.

B) Write your name and the reading that you are addressing on the top line of the card.

C) Keep a copy for yourself and give one copy to me at the beginning of each class. I

Contention cards will constitute 20 percent of the final grade.   

Final Paper

One paper, 8-12 pages in length. All papers are to be typed and double-spaced on standard paper in a standard font. Handwritten papers will not be accepted. The paper will count for 80 percent of the final grade.   

Absences and Lateness

Persistent absences or lateness will result in a reduction of your final grade.   

Grades and Incompletes

Incompletes will be granted only in accordance with the established policy of the college. The request must be made in advance of exam week. It must be made in writing. An incomplete is “available only if the student has been in regular attendance, has satisfied all but the final requirements of the course, and has furnished satisfactory proof that the work was not completed because of illness or other circumstances beyond control” (Pratt Institute Bulletin).
 

READINGS   

The Required texts for the class are

a) the Class Reader available at the Stuben Copy Center   

b) The Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis

c) Constructing the Political Spectacle

Readings not in required texts:

The photocopies of these may be purchased from the Pratt copy center in Stuben.   

Session I: Introduction to the Course   

Plato, The Republic, Book II. The Luxurious State (372A-374E), pgs.59-63     
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html 

Aristotle, Politics Chapter XVII, On the State, the household, and Slavery, pgs.1-6       
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.html  

Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, pgs.41-54

Alexandre Kojeve, Selection from an Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit.  

Session III:  The History of Political Institutions

Karl Marx, from the German Ideology  

E.V. Walter, "Policies of Violence: from Montesquieu to the Terrorists"; in The Critical Spirit: Essays in Honor of Herbert Marcuse (Boston: Beacon Press) Kurt Wolff and Barrington Moore. 1968.
 

Session IV: The State, Authority, and Terror

V. Lenin, State and Revolution, from Lenin on Politics and Revolution, pgs.184-195.

Henry J. Schmidt, trans. and ed. 1977. Georg Buchner. The Complete Collected Works, New York: Avon.

Max Horkhiemer,"The Authoritarian State"

Documentary: Seduction of a Nation. (1 Hour).

Session V: The State and Public Discourse: the Media and the Institutionalization of Political Discourse

Murray Edelman, Constructing the Political Spectacle 

Session VII: The Media and the Institutionalization of Political Discourse II

Murray Edelman, Constructing the Political Spectacle  

Session VII: Politics as War Carried out by Other Means: Political Discourse III

Documentary: Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky 

Session VIII: War and the State

Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, Pericle's Funeral Oration, Book II chap. 4, pgs.115-122
Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address  http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/gadd/
Plato, Republic Chap XVIII, v. 466d-471c, pgs. 169-174 ["On War"]

Session IX: The War Machine

Session XI: Essence of Decision

Session XII: Essence of Decision

Session XIII: Apollo 13

Session XIV: Apollo 13

Review XV: Review