US Political Thought Syllabus

PS 308

Fall, 1995

Time: Tu/Th 3:30 - 4:50pm

Location: 207 Chapman 936 PLC

Instructor: Joseph Boland Office: 214 Villard

Phone: 345-4204 Office Hours: Monday 11:15 - 12:15, Thursday 1:00 - 2:00

Email: jboland@darkwing.uoregon.edu

The dream of a new world of abundance, without tyranny or moral decay, has inspired, shaped, and haunted American political thought. In this course, we look at a series of political debates over the meaning and realization of the American creed or dream and the nature of American identity. These stretch from the debate over the Constitution between federalists and anti-federalists to the birth of the new social movements in the sixties and to the postmodern present. Considerable attention will be given to the diversity of beliefs and values held by Americans, as well as to the positions of different groups both within and outside the polity. While the course is primarily concerned with ideologies and worldviews, we will also look at the social contexts within which beliefs were articulated and to which they responded. The goal of the course is to better understand present day American political thought by interrogating the formative ideas and issues of the American past.

Readings

Nearly all readings are included in two reading packets. The first packet, covering the first five weeks of the course, is available now at the University Bookstore. The second packet will be available in about two weeks. The packets are three-hole punched so that you can put the readings in a binder. A handout accompanying this syllabus lists the contents of packet one (a similar handout for the second packet will be given out next week). Three readings for part one are on reserve in the Knight library: an article on Native American influence on American politics and two selections from Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Multiple copies of each will be available. In general, readings that are on reserve are identified on the readings handouts by a comment saying “On Reserve in the Knight Library.”

Readings for this course emphasize primary sources in order to give you a basis for forming your own interpretations as well as judging those made by others. However, a number of articles written by contemporary authors are also included, some because they express different positions in current debates about the nature of American political culture, others because they provide essential commentary on the ideas of particular collective actors in the past (e.g., the excerpts by Goodwyn on the Populist movement).

Using the Internet with this Course

I have created a world wide web (WWW) home page for this course. This home page will serve several purposes:

it will be the primary means by which I distribute supplementary handouts, essay questions, exam review questions, and the like;
it will provide you with links to sources of additional documents and resources related to this course;
it will offer you a way to share your comments on readings, lectures and discussions, and other aspects of the course with other students and with me;
I will use it to post announcements, reminders, and grades. Because of the vital role this home page will play, it is essential that you have the knowledge and ability to access it. For this reason, I have scheduled a mandatory tutorial session in the SSIL Lab during the class session of October 5th. Even if you are already familiar with the world wide web and newsgroups, I still want you to attend this tutorial, since in that case you can help other students to learn more effectively.

Assignments and Grading

1. What grades will be based on Your overall grade will be based upon (1) exams, (2) short essays (or a longer research paper), and (3) small group assignments. As explained below, 20% of your overall grade will come from your participation in a small group. For the other 80%, you have the following grading options:

2. Grading options:

Take the midterm exam (worth 20% of your final grade), the final exam (also worth 20% of your final grade), and write two short (3-4 page) essay papers responding to one of several questions that will be posed about each topic. Each essay paper will be worth 20% of your grade. One essay must be submitted on topics covered in the first half of the course, and one on topics covered in the second half.
Write three short (3-4 page) papers and skip either the midterm or final exam. Each paper will be worth 20% of your grade, as will the exam you take. At least one essay must be submitted on topics covered in the first half of the course, and one on topics covered in the second half.
Write a longer (12 page) paper for 60% of your grade and take either the mid-term or the final exam for 20% of your grade. You must submit to me a brief (one page) proposal describing the topic you would like to write about by the end of the third week.

You are responsible for choosing the grading option you want and fulfilling its requirements!

About the Exams Each exam will consist of short answer questions concerning the principal arguments and ideas discussed in lectures and readings. The midterm and final will be of equivalent length, and will be designed to be completed within a class session. The final may include a few questions on general themes spanning the entire course, but otherwise will not be cumulative.

About the Essays I will hand out short essay questions for each segment of the course. Essays should be 3-4 page long double-spaced responses to one of these questions. You may alternatively respond to questions of your own design provided that you get my approval first.

Essay papers must be submitted within one week after the topic they address is discussed in class, with the following exception. In order that you may have time to give a draft of one essay (of your choosing) to your small group for feedback, you can take up to three weeks to turn it in.

Research papers must be submitted by 5:00pm the day of the final exam.

3. Small group assignments Small groups will be set up during the first week of class, and each will have four or five members. The grade your group receives will be worth 20% of your individual grade for this course. Group grades will be based on fulfilling the following responsibilities:

Contribute questions for class discussion on five occasions.
Read and give feedback on one short essay (or research paper) draft from each member of the group. I will provide written guidelines for you to use, but in general I will not be a participant in your meetings. You will be expected to write up your feedback, then discuss it in a group meeting.

All groups which fulfill these responsibilities will receive full credit. Points will be deducted only for two reasons: (a) failure to provide discussion questions; (b) failure to make a good faith effort to provide feedback to each member on one of his/her papers.

If your group is experiencing difficulties working together, I want to know immediately.

For grading purposes, the problem of so-called “free-riding” in small groups will be handled as follows. At the end of the term, each member of each group will fill-out a confidential evaluation of the other members of their group. If a person’s participation is rated unsatisfactory by all the other members of their group, that person will suffer a full letter grade reduction in their final grade (A to B, etc.).

US Political Thought Class Schedule

Note: This is the current schedule as of October 3, 1995. Due to the difficulty many students had in obtaining the reader during the first days of the term, I moved the original schedule back one lecture and reduced the lectures on “Responses to industrialization from four to three.”

Sept. 26, 28 A. Introduction B. What is US Political Thought? Some American Arguments Oct. 3, 5 A. What is US Political Thought? Some American Arguments B. Tutorial in the SSIL Lab on using the World Wide Weband other Internet features Oct. 10, 12 A. America Imagined, America Conquered B. The Constitutional Founding Oct. 17, 19 A. Native American Influence on American Revolutionary and Constitutional Politics B. National democracy, development and imperial expansion Oct 24, 26 A. National democracy, development and imperial expansion B. Race relations in the 19th century Oct. 31, A. Race relations in the 19th century Nov. 2 B. Mid-term Exam Nov. 7, 9 Responses to industrialization - progressivism and the formation of a liberal welfare state, traditional liberalism, socialism, populism, pragmatism Nov 14, 16 A. Responses to industrialization B. Cold war democracy and the new social movements Nov 21 Cold war democracy and the new social movements November 23 -- Thanksgiving Nov 28, 30 A. Cold war democracy and the new social movements

B. The present: triumph and/or terminus of liberal democratic modernization?

Final Exam 8:00am Tuesday, December 5th