Course Timetable

1: Preliminary meeting (01/24)

2: Thomas More, Christian humanism, Catholicism and Utopia.
01/31
(Reading: More, Utopia)

3: Machiavelli, Machiavellism and reason of state
02/07
(Reading: Machiavelli, The Prince)

4: Bodin, Sovereignty, and Absolutism
02/14
(Reading: Six Books of the Commonwealth

5: Hobbes, science, politics, and the state of nature
02/21
(Reading: Leviathan part 1.)

6: Hobbes and the nature of the state
02/28
(Reading: Leviathan part 2.)

7. Sir Robert Filmer: Patriarchalism and the Divine Right of Kings

03/06

(Reading: Patriarcha)

 

DUE DATE FOR FIRST PAPER: 03/06

 

8. Democracy and Revolution: the English Levellers
03/13
(Reading: The English Levellers)

9: The law of nature, politics and Pufendorf
03/20
(Reading: On the duty of man and citizen)

10: Theories of property, liberalism, gender and John Locke
03/27
(Reading: Two treatises of government first treatise, and ch. 1-5 of second treatise)

SPRING BREAK: 03/31-04/08

11: Limited government, resistance and Locke
04/10
(Reading: the rest of Locke's Two treatises)

12: Towards atheism and materialism? Philosophy, religion, and Hobbes
04/17
(Reading: Leviathan parts 3 and 4.)

13: Church-state relations and the rise of toleration
04/24
(Reading: Locke, A letter concerning toleration)

14: The Enlightenment and democracy:
the American and
French Revolutions

05/01
(Reading: Thomas Paine, Common Sense and The Rights of Man)

15: Final Meeting: what changed between More and Paine?
05/08

DUE DATE FOR SECOND PAPER: 05/08