Rutgers University
Department of Political Science
Nature of Politics
790:101:91
Course Delivery: 100% online. No face-to-face meetings
Course Website: Available on eCollege (ecollege.rutgers.edu)
Instructor: Minhyuk (Bill) Hwang
Email:
Office hours: Wednesday 3-5 pm by Skype/Google Hangout or by appointment
Core Curriculum Code: HST or SCL (Social and Historical Analysis)
Course Description
In this course we will dive into pertinent social questions, attempting to understand how politics has evolved and formed the world of today. When we look at the world we see that the concept of historical progress has yet to terminate the oppression of people worldwide. Why are there still hundreds of millions of people starving to death while other people throw away edible food? Why do child labor and almost-slave-labor still exist in many so-called “developing countries”? What has allowed the unbalanced dynamic in which some countries on earth have been prosperous and peaceful for the past decades, while other countries are always in danger of another outbreak of civil war? None of these questions are easy to answer, but one thing is obvious; the most serious social issues in the world always demand political questions. What are developing countries’ governments doing that is creating civil unrest? Are wealthy countries systematically exploiting poor ones? How can we prevent war?
This course is designed to encourage each student to go on a journey to find the nature of politics by reading some of the most foundational texts in political science and philosophy. Each student will choose one political question that they want to answer throughout the course, and explore how a variety of thinkers have tried to answer the important political questions of their time. By the end of the course, students are required to get familiar with canonical political thoughts to obtain the understanding to resolve their own questions, and will be expected to complete a project about their answer to a question of their choice, in the format that they choose. (For the details, see the section on ‘assessments and assignments’)
Online Format and eCollege Course Management System
This class is offered entirely online in the eCollege system. There is neither face-to-face meeting in a classroom nor real-time online meeting. Students are required to complete each week’s tasks within the firm deadline. Tasks required to be completed within each week include video lectures, additional readings or charts, threaded discussions, and weekly multiple-choice quizzes. Like most of the online courses, the workload for this course will not be less than normal face-to-face courses. If you often experience problems related to procrastination and irregular lifestyle, please reconsider taking this course. However, if you enjoy working online and know how to manage your time when you are on your computer, this course is for you. If you have never used eCollege before, it is highly recommended to visit the following link to take the Student Orientation Tutorial provided by eCollege. (You need a NetID) Student Orientation Tutorial
About the Instructor
Bill Hwang is working as a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. His main research interests involve the Enlightenment tradition, socialism, communism, totalitarianism and political history of East Asia. In his free time, he reads classic fictions or plays musical instruments such as piano and saxophone.
Course Objectives
By the end of the course, students are expected to be able to:
1. Compare and contrast the main ideas of political thinkers in Western tradition.
2. Analyze and discuss the critical theoretical issues underlying political life: the individual and community; political obligation; stability, revolution, and change; legitimacy and justice; and freedom and power.
3. Explain the important political questions raised by each thinker and how they are relevant in answering the students’ own political question
4. Design a project equivalent to a 15-page essay to demonstrate their own political question and how to tackle the main issue in the question
Importance of Syllabus:
Please read the syllabus carefully from beginning to end. After being enrolled in this course, you will be held responsible for adhering to the policies of this course. Failure to obtain or read this syllabus does not exempt the student from its policies and procedures. If you have a question about the details in the syllabus, please read the FAQ or Q&A section on the course website. If you fail to find the answer on the course website, contact the instructor immediately.
Technical Requirements
Students should be familiar with the basic use of computer and the internet.
Students should also have good and easy access to:
1. High-speed internet
2. Desktop/laptop computer including a microphone
3. Speaker or audio device to listen to lecture videos
Please test your system at the following link:
· LearningStudio (eCollege) Technical Requirements[Take the browser test]
Required Readings*
Aristotle, The Politics
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
Hobbes, Leviathan
Locke, The Second Treatise of the Civil Government
Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents
Immanuel Kant, Political Writings (ed. H.S. Reiss)
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto
Carl Schmitt, Concept of the Political
*MOST OF THESE READINGS CAN BE FOUND ONLINE AND OTHERWISE WILL BE POSTED ON THE COURSE WEBSITE OR EMAILED BY THE INSTRUCTOR
Grading Policy
Letter Grade / Points ObtainedA / 360~400
B+ / 340~359
B / 320~339
C+ / 300~319
C / 280~299
D / 240~279
F / Less than 240
Points (%)
Threaded Discussions / 140 (35%)
Quizzes / 70 (17.5%)
Project Assignments / 80 (20%)
Final Project / 110 (27.5%)
Total / 400 (100%)
Assignment and Assessment
1. Participation in the threaded discussion
Each week, students are required to participate in one or more threaded discussions on various topics related to each week’s readings. All students should respond to each topic before reading others’ responses no later than the fifth day of each week, and leave at least two responses to the other participants by the end of the week. The instructor will grade the level of participation in each topic. The purpose of threaded discussion in this class is to help students organize their own ideas about the readings and to stimulate and encourage intellectual growth, rather than to evaluate students’ writing proficiency. Thus grammatical errors would not be the most important concern. The initial response to the topics, however, should be formal academic writing, in order to guarantee clarity. In the responses to other participants, students are allowed to use emoticons and colloquial languages to compensate for the absence of intimacy in face-to-face interactions, but such informality should not be too frequent. Use of texting-style abbreviations will always be prohibited.
The participation in each threaded discussion will be graded by the following rubric: 2 points for each criterion, which makes 10 points for one discussion topic. There are 14 threaded discussions overall.
PointsCriteria / 0
Unsatisfactory / 1
Could be better / 2
Way to go
Contribution to the Community / Provides less than two comments to fellow students or comments fail to demonstrate relevance / Provides at least two comments to fellow students but some of them lack the clear connection to the original response / Successfully provides at least two thoughtful comments to fellow students
Connection to Course Readings / Fails to provide any connection to readings or critically misunderstands major ideas / Shows some efforts to provide connections to readings but misunderstand details / Makes good connections to readings and shows only minor misunderstanding if any
Argument / Analysis / Arguments are unsubstantiated or have little relevance to the given topic / Arguments are supported but commonplace or supporting reasons are too weak / Arguments are insightful and well supported by good reasons
Delivery / Gives a poor impression because of lack of clarity or excess of informal writing / Ideas are generally understandable but inconsistent use of standard English reduces overall clarity / Uses good academic English except on some occasions
Initiative / Participates at the last minute / Participates at least a day before deadline but does not try to lead the discussion / Respond promptly and leads the discussion if possible
2. Quizzes
Students are required to take a weekly online quiz on eCollege system in order to assure that they grasp the main points of the course. The nature of the quizzes will be multiple choice and true/false. There are five questions in one quiz set. A mandatory sample quiz will be provided at the beginning of the class.
3. Project Assignments
One of the most important objectives of this course is to provide students with the opportunity to design their own project with the instructor’s help. Every three week, students will be expected to develop their final project step by step, which should be condensed into an essay of 3,000 to 4,000 words or any other form that shows equivalent work. Possible alternatives to essay-form include, but not limited to, fictions, screenplay for a short movie/documentary, and so on. Students will decide whether they will write an essay or select an alternative form by the sixth week of the course schedule. The following is a schedule for the project assignments.
Week / Day/Date / Project Assignments3 / Wed, Feb 10 / -Choose a political question that you want to answer
-Explain why it is important in 250 to 500 words
6 / Wed, Mar 2 / Choose the form of presentation
- Justify your choice and explain how the form of your choice will help you make your point in 250 words or more
- If you choose to write an essay, demonstrate a basic plan to address your point in 250 words or more
10 / Wed, Mar 23 / -Choose two thinkers of your interest throughout the course
-Critically appraise two thinkers of your choice and demonstrate how you will make a connection between the thinkers and your question in 250 words
-Build a concrete plan showing how you will write your work in 500 words
13 / Wed, Apr 13 / -Choose one more political thinker in or out of course readings and justify your choice in 250 words
-Build a complete outline of your work in 1000 words
Mon, May 2 / Final Deadline to submit a finished work in 3,000 to 4,000 words
Each of the four project assignments will be graded by the following rubric. Each criterion has in maximum five points, which adds up to 15 points for all three criteria. Students can get five more point by responding to the instructor’s feedback within one week, which makes 20 points in total.
PointsCriteria / 2
Unsatisfactory / 3
Could be better / 4
Way to go / 5
Excellent
Connection to Course Readings / Fails to provide any connection to readings or critically misunderstand major ideas / Shows some efforts to provide connections to readings but misunderstand details / Makes good connections to readings and show only minor misunderstanding if any / Clearly shows mastery of readings by using them appropriately without any misrepresentation
Argument / Analysis / Arguments are unsubstantiated or completely inconsistent with the student’s question / Arguments are supported but commonplace or supporting reasons are too weak / Arguments are insightful and well supported by good connections / Arguments are logically impeccable
Delivery / Gives a poor impression because of lack of clarity or excess of informal writing / Ideas are generally understandable but inconsistent use of standard English reduces overall clarity / Uses good academic English except on some occasions / Writing is clear, straightforward, and free from grammatical errors
Late Work Policy
Late work in threaded discussions, quizzes, and final project will not be accepted for any reason whatsoever. You will not pass this course if you fail to submit the final project before the deadline. Do prepare in advance. Technical failure in the website will not make an excuse unless it is a publicly addressed problem by Rutgers. Late project assignments will be accepted with a reduction of points, one point per one day late.
Class Schedule
Week / Day/Date / Unit Title / Topics / Readings, Lectures, Media, Activities, and Assignments1 / Tue.Sep.6 to Sun.Sep.11 / Real Nature of Politics? / - What is politics? / - Introduction
- Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation”
2 / Mon.Sep.12 to Sun.Sep.18 / Real Nature of Politics – 2 : Carl Schmitt / -General discussion on ‘nature of politics’
-Introduction of the course / -Schmitt, Concept of the Political
-mandatory completion of sample discussion and quiz
3 / Mon.Sep.19 to Sun.Sep.25 / Ancient Greeks: Politics of Unity / -Political thoughts before modernity
-Why ancient thoughts still matter / -Pericles’ Funeral Oration from Thucydides
- Excerpts from Plato, Defense of Socrates, The Republic
- Excerpts from Aristotle, Politics
cf. Sunzi, Art of War, Confucius, Analect
4 / Mon.Sep.26 to Sun.Oct.2 / The Dawn of Modern Politics: Machiavelli / -Rise of realist political thought
-Why state-building was so important / -Machiavelli, The Prince, The Mandrake
5 / Mon.Oct.3 to Sun.Oct.9 / The Birth of Political “Science”: Hobbes / -Problems of normative political thought
-Hobbes’ version of “Science” / -Hobbes, Leviathan
6 / Mon.Oct.10 to Sun.Oct.16 / The March of Individual Rights: Locke / -How the concept of ‘right’ was born
-Property right
-Labor theory of value / -Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government
7 / Mon.Oct.17 to Sun.Oct.23 / The Enlighten-ment II / -Defense of science and reason from religion and arbitrary power
-What is ‘reason’? / -Kant, “What is Enlightenment?”
Critique of realism without ideal
8 / Mon.Oct.24 to Sun.Oct.30 / Age of “Spiritual” Science and Rise of Social Science / -Notion of progress and evolutionary social thought / -Excerpts from Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History
-Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto
9 / Mon.Oct.31 to Sun.Nov.6 / Reform or Revolution? / -Development of capitalism and revolutionary consciousness
-The social democratic movement in Germany and the rise of communism in Russia / -Excerpts from Marx, Capital, vol.1
-Excerpts from Bernstein, The Preconditions of Socialism
-Excerpts from Lenin,
10 / Mon.Nov.7 to Sun.Nov.13 / Warning to Political Philosophy / -True Human Nature? Freud’s warning to socialists
-How can we prevent the apocalypse? / Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
11 / Mon.Nov.14 to Sun.Nov.20 / Freedom of Speech and its Critiques / -Why freedom of speech is the single most important issue in liberal democracy / JS Mill, On Liberty
Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance”
12 / Mon.Nov.21 to Sun.Nov.27 / Thanksgiving Recess
13 / Mon.Nov.28 to Sun.Dec.4 / Temptation of Violence / -How violence works in addressing the political agenda
-Is violence necessary in some circumstances? / King, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
X, “Ballot or the Bullet?”
14 / Mon.Dec.5 to Sun.Dec.11 / End of History? / -Human rights issues and triumph of liberal democracy
-Can we end the suffering on Earth? / Fukuyama, “The End of History?”
Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?”
15 / Mon.Dec.12 to Wed.Dec.14 / Conclusion: Where Are We Going? / -Concluding discussion
-Talk about students’ own projects
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