81719 - ATLANTIC AND GLOBAL HISTORY OF MODERN POLITICAL CONCEPTS (1) (LM)

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

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.

Contenuti

The course will deal with the history of modern political thought – with a special focus on the development of some fundamental concepts such as sovereignty, state, rights, property and war – in a global perspective, which 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 of new discursive strategies and new political categories in the early modern age.

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, as well as detailed information on the organization of the course and the final examination, 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 Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Thomas Paine.

The third unit (approximately the last four classes) will offer a spatial reading of the work of the legal scholar Hugo Grotius in the light of the perspective outlined in the first two units. Grotius – who has traditionally been considered one of the founding fathers of modern international law and modern maritime law, but who was also a crucial figure in the context of the creation of the Dutch "seaborne" empire in the East and West Indies – constitutes a compelling case study because his legal and political theory can be situated in a transitional moment between the medieval and humanist tradition on the one hand and the emergence of a modern outlook on the other, while reflecting the entanglements between states and colonies, land and sea, the territorialized order of sovereignty, and the fluid power of commercial empires and trading companies. An analysis of his work can therefore allow us both to grasp the complex origins and characteristics of modern political space and to elucidate the global genealogy of European modernity.

 

Testi/Bibliografia

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

The bibliography for students attending at least the 75% of the classes will based on the following texts:

A. Bogues, R. Laudani, Theses for a Global History of Political Concepts, available on this website: http://aghct.org/political-concepts-thesis ;

R. Laudani, "Mare e Terra: Sui fondamenti spaziali della sovranità moderna", Filosofia politica, 3 (2015), pp. 513-530 (an English version will be available on Virtuale for attending students);

H. Grotius, Hugo Grotius, Mare Liberum, 1609-2009, Latin text and modern English translation, edited and annotated by Robert Feenstra; with a general introduction by Jeroen Vervliet, Leiden, Brill, 2009, (relevant passages from the translation of the Preface “to the Rulers and the Free Nations of the Christian World” and from chapters 1-5, chapter 8, chapter 12 will be provided in the slides and will constitute the material for the exam);

Hugo Grotius, Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty (De iure praedae), Edited and with an Introduction by Martine Julia van Ittersum, Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, 2006 (relevant passages from chapter 2, pp. 19-50; chapter 6, pp. 92-100, chapter 8, pp. 127-181, and chapter 13, pp. 391-436 will be provided in the slides and will constitute the material for the exam);

Hugo Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis, translated by. F. Kelsey, Washington, Carnegie endowment for international peace, 1925 (relevant passages from Prolegomena and Book One, pp. 9-166; Book Two, chapters 2-5, pp. 186-259, chapter 15, pp. 391-408, chapter 22, pp. 546-556; Book Three, chapters 2-4, pp. 623-657 will be provided in the slides and will constitute the material for the exam);

Links to further suggested readings (articles or book chapters) or other materials (such as videos or websites) will be made available during the course’s period on the "teaching resources" section of this website, accessible to Unibo students, in order to complement the lectures, provide more background knowledge and other insights in order to facilitate our discussion in class, but will not be mandatory for the exam.

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 ;

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”) .

Hugo Grotius, Hugo Grotius, Mare Liberum, 1609-2009, Latin text and modern English translation, edited and annotated by Robert Feenstra; with a general introduction by Jeroen Vervliet, Leiden, Brill, 2009, (translation of the Preface “to the Rulers and the Free Nations of the Christian World” and chapters 1-5, chapter 8, chapter 12);

Hugo Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis, translated by. F. Kelsey, Washington, Carnegie endowment for international peace, 1925 (Prolegomena and Book One, pp. 9-166; Book Two, chapters 2-5, pp. 186-259, chapter 15, pp. 391-408, chapter 22, pp. 546-556; Book Three, chapters 2-4, pp. 623-657);

E. Keene, Beyond the Anarchical Society. Grotius, Colonialism and Order in World Politics; Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002 (chapter 2 and 3, pp. 40-96).

A. Del Vecchio, Territories of War: A Spatial Reading of Grotius’ ius belli, in «History of Political Thought», (forthcoming at the end of August 2023)

Metodi didattici

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.

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

Attending students are expected to pass an oral examination, with questions aimed at assessing their knowledge of the topics, the materials and the sources discussed in class and of the readings listed in the bibliography section designed for them. Questions will also be aimed at appraising the students' critical thinking, their exposition and language skills, and their ability to build their arguments by drawing connections between different texts and topics

The oral exam for non-attending students will be 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 are strongly recommended to 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.

This 6 CFU course can be chosen as a part of the 12 CFU Integrated Course “81861 - OCEANIC STUDIES (I.C.) (LM)". If the student has the Integrated Course (12 CFU) in his/her study plan, the final grade will result from the arithmetic average of the marks obtained in the two parts (“81719 - ATLANTIC AND GLOBAL HISTORY OF MODERN POLITICAL CONCEPTS (1) (LM)" and “81722 - INDIAN OCEAN HISTORY (1) (LM)”.

If this course is part of the integrated course Oceanic Studies, students can take first either Indian Ocean History exam or Atlantic and Global History of Modern Political Concepts exam. Students will get a grade for each module (one for Indian Ocean History and one for Atlantic and Global History of Modern Political Concepts). The final grade for the integrated course will be the average grade of the two modules.

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

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.

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Antonio Del Vecchio