GV262      One Unit
Contemporary Political Theory

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

Requisites

Pre-requisites:

Students must have completed GV100 before taking this course.

Additional requisites:

Introduction to Political Theory or equivalent.

This course engages the study of contemporary political theory by examining 20th and 21st century texts while also considering concrete, practical political and social problems. Throughout the AT, we highlight theoretical analyses of questions that concern politics and economic life. Such questions include normative issues about how to define a just distribution of social goods and the relation between economic justice and freedom, as well as critical-theoretical questions about how to understand oppression and popular mobilisation in historical contexts defined by capitalist, colonial, racial and gender power. During the WT, we explore various theoretical problems regarding immigration, environmental politics and global justice in the wake of colonisation. GV262 challenges students to consider a wide range of approaches to writing political theory and diverse perspectives on the basic question of what ‘political theory’ is. The course offers a WT option to participate in a public-oriented group research activity in partnership with an external organisation, and the course also qualifies as a CIVICA Engage Course for students who pursue the CIVICA Engage Track.

15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Autumn Term.
15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn and Winter Term.

Essay

Blog post

Students are expected to submit one formative essay and one formative blog in AT.

The course requires students to organize their workloads, to complete readings in advance of lectures, and to prepare to participate actively in seminars. The course thus emphasizes the development of verbal and written communication abilities. Students also should expect to tackle basic questions about what it means to write political theory by exploring tensions and affinities between normative/ethical and critical-theoretical approaches.

John Rawls, “A Theory of Justice”; Robert Nozick, “Anarchy, State, and Utopia”; Jacques Rancière, “Disagreement”; Joseph Carens, “The Ethics of Immigration”; Michel Foucault, “Two Lectures”; Mohandas K. Gandhi, “Hind Swaraj”; James Baldwin, “The Fire Next Time”; Rosa Luxemburg, "The Mass Strike"; V. I. Lenin, “What Is To Be Done?"; C. L. R. James, “The Black Jacobins”; Susan Moller Okin, “Justice, Gender, and the Family”; Friedrich A. von Hayek, “The Constitution of Liberty”; Herbert Marcuse, “One-Dimensional Man”; Ingolfur Blühdorn, “Sustainability - Post-Sustainability - Unsustainability".

Exam (50%), duration: 120 Minutes in the Spring exam period

Blog post (20%, 750 words) in Winter Term Week 9

Essay (30%, 1500 words) in Winter Term Week 6

GENERAL COURSE STUDENTS ONLY:

The Class Summary Grade for General Course students will be calculated as follows: 15% class participation, 80% formative coursework (40% per assignment), and 5% attendance.