81719 - Atlantic and Global History of Modern Political Concepts (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course students will acquire the fundamental methodological and theoretical tools of the so-called «Atlantic History», which redefines the spatial limits of Modern politics, considering Europe, Africa and the Americas as part of one and the same global experience. This perspective well developed in North American universities will be extended to the history of political concepts, with a special attention to antagonistic political cultures and resistance movements, but also to the colonial dimension embedded in the great classics of Modern and contemporary political thought.

Course contents

The course will deal with the history of modern political thought – with a special focus on some fundamental concepts such as sovereignty, state, rights, property and war – in a global perspective that assumes the opening of the new Atlantic political space and the problems involved in European expansion overseas as a crucial background for understanding the emergence and the development of modern politics.

 

After an initial lecture designed to provide a general overview of the methodology, the topics and the authors that will be examined in the program the subsequent weeks of classes will be divided into three distinct but interconnected units.

The first unit (approximately the second and third classes) will deal with the theoretical and methodological tools of conceptual history and its redefinition from a global and oceanic perspective. It will be argued that the history of concepts has provided an essential framework for understanding and criticizing the foundations of modern politics, but the Eurocentric coordinates underlying the traditional versions of this approach must be radically revised in order to grasp the genealogy of our global present.

The second unit (approximately from the fourth to the tenth class) will address the emergence of the Atlantic space and its distinctive phenomena and actors as a decisive factor of historical transformation that radically displaced the traditional coordinates of politics. On this basis, the development of a new political framework and the modern theory of state sovereignty will be understood as a response to this crucial challenge. This will be illustrated through a close reading and discussion of relevant passages from classical thinkers such as Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Thomas Paine.

The third unit (approximately the last four classes) will focus on the transformations of the Atlantic space after the age of the revolutions, on the redefinition of sovereignty in colonial contexts and the crisis of liberal universalism during the XIX century, with special references to thinkers such as Tocqueville, Mill, Hegel and Marx.

Readings/Bibliography

Regular attendance and interaction in class is an integral part of the learning activity. For this reason, the program for attending students is different from that for non-attending students.

 

The bibliography for students attending at least the 75% of the classes will based on the classic works that will be discussed and commented in class and a selection of articles and essays. A full reading list will be made available on the platform Virtuale (accessible by Unibo students via the "Teaching Materials" link on this page)

 

Bibliography for students who cannot attend classes with regularity:

R. Koselleck, "Introduction and Prefaces to the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe", trans. M. Richter, Contributions to the History of Concepts, 6/1 (2011), pp. 1-37.

A. Bogues, R. Laudani, Theses for a Global History of Political Concepts, available on this website: http://aghct.org/political-concepts-thesis and R. Laudani, Mare e Terra. Sui fondamenti spaziali della sovranità moderna, in “Filosofia politica”, 3, 2015, pp. 513-530. (An English version of these two texts will be made available for students in the teaching material of this website)

B. Bailyn, Atlantic History. Concept and Contours, Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press, 2005.

Campling, Liam and Alejandro Colás. Capitalism and the Sea. London – New York: Verso, 2021, Introduction, Chapter 1 (“Circulation”) and Chapter 2 (“Order”).

S. Chignola, Homo homini tigris: Thomas Hobbes and the Global Images of Sovereignty, «Philosophy and Social Criticism», 2022, Vol. 48(5), pp. 726–754.

B. Arneil, John Locke and America. The Defence of English Colonialism, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996, chapter 2 (“Colonialism and Natural Law”) and chapter 6 (“Colonialism: Locke’s Theory of Property”) .

J. Pitts, A Turn to Empire. The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005.

Teaching methods

The course will essentially be structured as a series of frontal lectures designed to examine the topics addressed in the three units, to provide students who are not already familiar with the history of political thought with the background necessary to understand the authors, and to explore the Atlantic and colonial dimensions of their theories by directly analyzing and discussing the sources. In any case, students are encouraged to be active in class and to interact with the teacher by asking questions and making appropriate comments, both during the lectures and in the moments devoted to discussion. A final (and more informal) moment of collective dialogue on the entire program covered in class may also be scheduled immediately after the end of the course.

Assessment methods

Attending students may choose either to take a full oral exam aimed at assessing their knowledge of the topics, the materials and the sources discussed in class (PowerPoint slides, passages read during the lectures, and the texts indicated in the final reading list) and aimed at appraising their critical thinking, their exposition ability to build draw connections between different texts and topics, or to submit a paper on a specific issue, connected to the content of the classes and previously agreed upon with the teacher and discuss it as part of the oral exam, during which it will be necessary in any case to demonstrate a general understanding of the topics discussed during the lectures.

Students' papers must be sent by e-mail at least 5 days before the exam date.

 

Rules concerning the use of Artificial Intelligence in the written exam

A limited, declared, and non-substantive use of artificial intelligence is permitted for support activities such as editing and proofreading. However, the substantive use of AI to produce any part of the assessed work is not permitted.

Accordingly, all the papers will be discussed with the professor at the exam and the final evaluation will take into account both the paper and the student's ability to discuss it and answer any questions or objections raised during the oral part.

 

Non-attending students must take an oral exam aimed at evaluating their knowledge of the readings listed in the bibliography section, their familiarity with the theoretical, historical and methodological problems involved in the Atlantic and Global approach to the history of modern political thought and their ability to connect different texts and issues with an appropriate language.

At any rate, non-attending students or students who cannot attend classes with regularity must get in touch with the professor before the exam in order to have more detailed information or to have clarifications about the texts and the issues addressed in their readings.

 

The following criteria will be adopted for the evaluation of both attending and non-attending students:

- In order to receive an excellent final grade, students should display their capacity to correctly analyze the sources and to clearly and critically discuss about them with a proper language and a confident mastership of the issues addressed in class and in the course's bibliography.

- Good or average marks will be awarded to students who display an acceptable knowledge of the texts combined with a fair capacity to expose their content and with an overall understanding of the issues discussed in class, though with some minor imperfections and a less appropriate lexicon.

- A basic and mnemonic knowledge of the texts and of the main points addressed during classes will receive a lower or sufficient assessment.

- An unclear or significantly inaccurate exposition of the texts and the course's contents will be evaluated as insufficient to pass the examination.

 

The examination sessions for 2026/2027 will be held during the autumn and winter session (November, December, January, February and March) and during the summer session (May, June and July).

Teaching tools

During the lectures, the teacher will use PowerPoint slides containing texts, summaries, and other materials (such as images or maps). The slides will be uploaded as PDFs on Virtuale (accessible from the "Teaching Materials" link on this page). This platform will also be used to provide additional materials, to suggest further and non-mandatory readings (also at the students' request), and to keep a dialogue between the teacher and the class.

 

Students with learning disorders and\or temporary or permanent disabilities: please, contact the office responsible ( https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students ) as soon as possible so that they can propose acceptable adjustments. The request for adaptation must be submitted in advance (15 days before the exam date) to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of the adjustments, taking into account the teaching objectives.

Office hours

See the website of Antonio Del Vecchio