90493 - FILOSOFIA POLITICA LM

Learning outcomes

The course aims at providing students with the conceptual tools required to analyze questions of effectiveness and fairness in public policies, citizenship rights, (universal) human rights as well as global justice.

Course contents

The course aims at providing students with the tools to approach the main topics at stake in contemporary debates in political theory. Each year a single question or author is selected. This year the course will particularly focus on “political realism,” usually considered a conservative theoretical tradition. On the contrary, we will study a specific strand of political realism, focused on such problems as innovation, transformation, and revolution. In particular, the course will be devoted to two works: The Prince, by Niccolò Machiavelli (1513), and State and Revolution, by Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1917).

Readings/Bibliography

Books required for the exam (English speaking students):

A. The following texts:

L. Althusser, Machiavelli and us, London – New York, 2011.

A. Negri, Insurgencies. Constituent Power and the Modern State, Minneapolis, MI, University of Minnesota Press, 1999 (chapter 6, “Communist desire and the dialectic restored”).

B. One of the following works (reading both works is recommended but it is not required for the exam)

N. Machiavelli, The Prince, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000.

V.I. Lenin, The State and Revolution, Harmondsworth, Penguin classics, 1993.

Any unabridged edition of Machiavelli’s and Lenin’s works is accepted.

Teaching methods

Lectures will be combined with seminars, with direct involvement of students and possible participation of external guests.

Assessment methods

The exam will be oral. Students attending classes are encouraged although not required to present a paper (around 4.000 words), to be discussed during the exam. The paper must be delivered at least a week before the exam date.

Teaching tools

The course presupposes a basic knowledge of the history of modern and contemporary political theory. Students who do not have such knowledge in their curriculum can refer to one of the following texts:

S.S. Wolin, Politics and Vision. Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2006
C. Galli (ed), Manuale di storia del pensiero politico, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2011
A. Pandolfi (ed), Nel pensiero politico moderno, Roma, Manifestolibri, 2004

Links to further information

http://unibo.academia.edu/SandroMezzadra

Office hours

See the website of Sandro Mezzadra