Center for Civics, Culture, and Society

UNV 105: The American Political Tradition: Its Background, Founding, and Development

This course will study the theoretical ideas that informed the creation and development of America’s political system and consider some of the major contemporary challenges to the maintenance of American democracy. Topics to be treated include the claims for American independence, the nature of written constitutions, the problems presented by slavery, the core political institutions of our republic, the emergence of American progressivism and conservatism, and the role of America in the world. Emphasis is placed on direct engagement with the authors who have shaped our political tradition. Readings will feature core primary documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and include other works of political philosophy (e.g., Aristotle and John Locke) and the letters and speeches of key political figures. Students will be conversant with the defining debates of the American political tradition and the various parties and perspectives at work in those debates.

UNV 201: Civic Thought: An Introduction

Is governing ourselves worth the trouble?  Should we try to wrap our minds around our country’s complex problems, its checkered history, and its creaky political machinery?  Should we strive to negotiate with people who seem to see everything differently?  Why bother, given that every effort at self-government eventually seems to dissolve into civil war or despotism?  It is tempting to abandon the effort to live in civic community—and simply force our own preferred outcomes through, turn things over to a strong ruler, or give up and go with the apparent inevitable drift of history. Such doubts and frustrations about civic life are nothing new.  As the first theorist of civic life, Aristotle, remarked in 350 BC: “to live together and be partners in any human matter is difficult.”  Living together is hard in part because it requires acting in common with those with whom we disagree about what is “good and bad and just and unjust.”  

What makes civic life difficult, however, also makes it valuable.  The need to act together with others who see things differently causes us to see aspects of goodness and justice we would otherwise miss.  Civic argument and effort can summon forth immense creative energies that enable genuine deliberation and common action and beget unprecedented improvements in our common life. This course investigates the human capacity for living civically—constituting communities of citizens who share power and responsibility for common action.  It will introduce you to ways the human potential to think and act as a citizen has been realized in different historical forms.  Because citizenship is always exercised in a particular context, we will pay special attention to our own context—the history and practice of the American self-government, with its distinctive shortcomings and accomplishments.  And because civic life is always developing in response to new challenges and opportunities, this course aims to cultivate the civic habits of thought that will help you better play your own, unprecedented role in this distinctively human undertaking.

UNV 205: Dimensions of American Civic Thought

This course is devoted the understanding of American civic life through the study of the central documents and key authors of our political tradition. American authors have been quite self-conscious in addressing themselves to perennial questions of justice and the common good. They joined long-standing debates about the relation between rights and duties, the nature of revolution, the possibility of republican self-government, the role of commerce in a free society, and the nature and extent of religious freedom. Students will join these authors and enter these debates to recover the logic of the various arguments made therein. Students will come away from the course with an understanding of: (1) the idea of natural rights; (2) the architecture of the Constitution and the ground of republican self-government; (3) the benefits of and challenges presented by commerce in  a free society; (4) the roles played by slavery and race in the history of our republic; and (5) how our political tradition has met the challenge of religious freedom. 

UNV 320: Free and Civil Speech

Americans today live in a time of deep political polarization, cultural tribalism, and self-segregation. Those with whom we have deep disagreements, assuming we interact with them at all, are often viewed as not just wrong but as irrational, immoral, even contemptible. What are the causes and costs of these trends? What remedies might exist? Are there habits of mind that we might cultivate to build better citizens and a healthier democracy? The course consists of four parts. In part one we will consider the challenges and trends facing us today with respect to speech, deliberation, and inquiry. Next we’ll move on to examine some of the philosophic and political texts that have grappled with questions of free and civil speech—including thinkers such as John Stuart Mill, James Madison, Frederick Douglass, and Herbert Marcuse. We’ll consider the problem from many different perspectives—from the most strident proponents of freedom of speech to its most vociferous critics. In part three we will examine how the cultivation of particular virtues might affect our capacity for deliberation and community. The final part of the course will consist of a series of debates on topics of public interest.

UNV 210: Constitutionalism: Ancient and Modern

Students will confront how different thinkers have articulated the variety of political regimes available to human beings, from the ancient world to today. Students will consider the relationship between the arrangement of political institutions and how that arrangement tends to promote a particular way of life for citizens. The course will conclude with a consideration of the idea of constitutionalism in the United States and how its constitution shapes and structures the pursuit of happiness for its citizens.

UNV 305: The Art of Statesmanship

Students will consider how statesmanship suggests a certain quality of excellence in both leadership and judgment. The course is devoted studying what qualities of character are required for good statesmanship and what sort of knowledge a statesman ought to possess. Students will examine these questions through classic texts on the subject and through study of the words and actions of figures like Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln.

UNV 306: Rhetoric and Civic Life

Rhetoric is the art of producing an effect on listeners, through the prudential choice of words or phrases, for the purposes of persuasion. The study of rhetoric will enhance the student’s ability to read and analyze original texts, speeches, and documents carefully. The study of how the rhetorical character of important speeches have influenced historical events and political ideas will also reveal to students a deeper understanding of the meaning and significance of those events and ideas. Students will see the central role that rhetoric can play in civic life, for better and worse.

UNV 405: Core Texts in Civic Thought

This course is devoted to the intensive study of a single text that reflects on themes central to civic life. Students will increase their capacity for sustained attention, concentration, and imagination by reading and living with a single author over the course of a semester. They will learn to navigate complex, sustained arguments that unwind gradually and at great length. Students will develop the patience and courage to follow such arguments and adapt themselves to see the world through the mind of the author. Possible texts include Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws, and Melville’s Moby Dick.