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 focuses on the spatial framework of modern political concepts. It will be divided into four parts:

The first part will give to the students the basic theoretical tools of conceptual history and its redefinition from a global and oceanic perspective. It will also outline the rise of the Atlantic as the space within which western modern political concepts were forged.

 

The second part will exemplify this epistemological perspective in the spatial redefinition of modern concept of sovereignty. We will be reading and comment pages from classics such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Thomas Paine, assuming the relationships between state and colony as constitutive of modern conceptuality.

 

The third part will discuss those alternative traditions that constitutively exceed the spatial framework of mainstream modernity, such as the so-called Black radical tradition. In particular, we will focus on the black abolitionism that will be read as a peculiar critical theory of modern political concepts.

 

The forth part will focus on the decline of the spatial presuppositions of modern liberal universalism and the redefinition of the role and function of the Atlantic political space embedded in it. We will be using Tocqueville as an example of this transformation.

Testi/Bibliografia

Students that will attend classes

The following reading list is divided into five parts, approximately corresponding to the five weeks of classes.

Students are strongly encouraged to read the texts before attending classes, in order to be able to discuss their contents during classwork. The texts will also constitute the basic bibliography to be studied for final examination.

Preparatory Readings (Students are encouraged to read them before the first day of classes):

- R. Koselleck, Futures Past. On the Semantics of Historical Time, New York, Columbia University Press, 2004, chap. 5;

- P.E. Steinberg, The Social Construction of the Ocean, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001, chap. 1;

- R. Laudani, Mare e Terra. Sui fondamenti spaziali della sovranità moderna, in “Filosofia politica”, 3, 2015, pp. 513-530. (An English version will be available for students in the teaching material of this website)

Suggested: Steinberg, Social Construction, chapp. 2, 3, 4, 5; C. Schmitt, Land and Sea, Washington, Plutarch Press, 1997; S. Chignola, History of Political Thought and History of Political Concepts, in “History of Political Thought, 23, 3, 2002, pp. 517-541.

Week 1

- P.E. Steinberg, Of Other Seas: methaphors and materialities in maritime regions, in “Atlantic Studies: Global Currents”, 10, 2, 2013, pp. 156-169

- K. Ordhal Kupperman, The Atlantic in World History, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012, introduction, chapp. 1 and 2.

- M.W. Lewis, Dividing the Ocean Sea, in “The Geographical Review”, 89, 2, 1999, pp. 188-214

Week 2

- E . de la Boétie, The Politics of Obedience. The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude, New York, Black Rose Books, 1997.

- T. Hobbes, Leviathan, parts 1 and 2 (any edition)

Week 3

- J. Locke, Second Treatise on Government (any integral edition)

- T. Paine, Common Sense, chap. I (any edition)

- T. Paine, Rights of Man II, chap. I (any edition)

Week 4

- D. Walker, Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in particular and very expressly, to those of The United States of America, 1830 (any integral edition)

- M. Delany, Political Destiny of the Colored Race on the American Continent (1854), in Martin R. Delany, A Documentary History, ed. by R. S. Levine, Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 2003, pp. 245-279.

Week 5

A. de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book I: Introduction, Chapp. 3, 4; Book II: chapp. 5, 7, 8, 10; Book III, part II: chapp. 1, 2, 3, 5; part III: chapp. 5, 17 ; part IV;

A. de Tocqueville, First Letter on Algeria (1837); Second Letter on Algeria (1837); First Report on Algeria (1847); Second Report on Algeria (1847), in A. de Toqueville, Writings on Empire and Slavery, Baltimore, Johns Hokins University Press, 2001, pp. 5-26, 129-198;

W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, chapp. I, IV, VI, VII, IX (any integral edition)

 

Students that will not attend classes

Students that will not attend with regularity will have to study the following books for their final exam:

- R. Koselleck, Futures Past. On the Semantics of Historical Time, New York, Columbia University Press, 2004;

- P.E. Steinberg, The Social Construction of the Ocean, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001;

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

- P. Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness, London, Verso, 1993.

 

 

Metodi didattici

Lectures and discussions in class.

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

Oral exam

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

We will be using several "non-conventional" sources for the historians of political thought. 

The reading and comment of political texts will be complemented by the analysis of movies, images, and music

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Raffaele Laudani