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 specifically focus on Karl Marx, in an attempt to provide a reading of his work (and in particular of Capital) that is attentive to the main topics at stake in contemporary critical debates in political theory. The course aims therefore to combine an introduction to reading Marx today with a discussion of the persistent relevance in the present of several questions and concepts he formulated.

Readings/Bibliography

Books required for the exam (English speaking students):

A. One of the following two:

S. Mezzadra, In the Marxian Workshops. Producing Subjects. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.

É. Balibar, The Philosophy of Marx. London – New York: Verso, 2014.

B. K. Marx, Capital, vol.1. London: Penguin, 1976, chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

C. The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. by Robert C. Tucker, London – New York, Norton & Company, 1978 (second edition).

Further readings will be suggested during the course.

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 date of the exam, when it will be discussed with the instructor.

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

A. Negri, Insurgencies. Constituent Power and the Modern State, Minneapolis, MI, University of Minnesota Press, 1999
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