VII. Sample Writing Assignments
The following paragraphs provide sample-writing assignments of the following courses:
1) Marx’s Challenge to the Good Life in Modern Societies, Spring 2011
2) Contemporary European Political Philosophy, Fall 2010
3) The Philosophy of Middle-Eastern Politics, Spring 2010
4) Western Political Theory, Fall 2009
5) Power and Political Resistance, Fall 2009
6) Alternative Models of Political Theorizing, Spring 2009
7) Studies of Modern Society: 1798 to the Present, Spring 2003
8) Texts and Contexts: Old Worlds and New, Fall 2002
1. Marx’s Challenge to the Good Life in Modern Societies: INQ 120
Institution: Roanoke College
Department: Public Affairs
Date: Spring 2011
Course-level: Undergraduate course
Format: Seminar
Enrollment: 15 students
Position: Assistant Professor
Sample Questions for reading assignments students needed to answer in writing prior to our class sessions
Thesis on Feuerbach, pp. 143-145
1.What is the relationship between theory and praxis that Marx outlines?
2.Does Marx believe that we can change the circumstances we live in?
3.What does Marx mean by the statement that the human essence “is the ensemble of social relations”?
4.How can we counter mysticism?
5.What does Marx mean with famous thesis 11: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it”?
Capital, Volume One, pp. 294-329
1.What is the use-value of the work product?
2.What are the central characteristics of exchange value and what does it allow us to do?
3.What is a commodity fetish?
4.What is the two-fold nature of labor contained in commodities?
5.What is the relative and what is the equivalent form?
2. Contemporary European Political Philosophy: POLI 261
Institution: Roanoke College
Department: Public Affairs
Date: Fall 2010
Course-level: Advanced undergraduate seminar
Format: Seminar
Enrollment: 9
Position: Assistant Professor
Sample questions for paper assignments:
1.Discuss and evaluate Adorno’s assertion that both enlightenment rationality and myth are linked to domination.
2.Was Eichmann responsible for his acts? Explain and critically evaluate Arendt’s answer to this question.
3.Explain and critically evaluate the three dimensions—the imaginary, the symbolic, and the Real through which Lacan maps his thought.
4.Explain and critically evaluate Leeb’s application of Adorno and Lacan’s complementary theoretical framework for feminist political theorizing
5.Discuss and critically evaluate Cavarero’s notion of a politics based on vulnerability.
6.Discuss and critically evaluate Agamben’s theory of sovereignty as power.
7.Discuss and critically evaluate Agamben’s notion of the homo sacer.
3. The Philosophy of Middle-Eastern Politics
Institution: Roanoke College
Department: Public Affairs
Date: Spring 2010
Course-level: Advanced undergraduate course
Format: Seminar
Enrollment: 19
Position: Assistant Professor
Sample paper questions:
1.Explain and critically evaluate the relationship between knowledge and power in Western scholarship about the Orient as outlined in Orientalism.
2.Explain and critically evaluate Said’s argument that the Orient is not merely a Western invention, but also has a corresponding concrete material reality.
3.Explain and discuss how Mehran Kamrava’s definition of identity—as something changing—is a central feature in both Zionist and Palestinian identity.
4.Outline and discuss the three modes of power (disciplinary, bio-, and sovereign power) and how these forms of power have shaped the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.
5.What were the procedures Israel used to foreclose the development of a Palestinian national identity and why did these procedures fail to produce the desired outcome?
4. Western Political Theory
Institution: Roanoke College
Department: Public Affairs
Date: Fall 2009
Course-level: Advanced undergraduate course
Format: Lecture
Enrollment: 15
Position: Visiting Assistant Professor
Sample essay questions:
1.Do you agree/disagree with Cicero that one should resolve conflicts through debate and not through force since “the former is the proper concern of a man, but the latter of beasts”?
2.Why does Machiavelli prefer the rule of the many in free republics to the rule of the prince in the principality? Discuss and critically evaluate.
3.Why does Hobbes think that humans can’t live together without subjecting themselves to a sovereign? Discuss and critically evaluate.
4.Under what conditions are subjects allowed to refuse what the sovereign in Hobbes’ thought commands? Discuss and critically evaluate.
5.Discuss and critically evaluate Rousseau’s social contract theory, which implies “the total alienation of each associate, with all his rights, to the whole community” (I, 6).
6.Discuss and critically evaluate Kant’s motto of the enlightenment.
-
7.Discuss and critically evaluate the similarities and differences between Kant’s and Rousseau’s view upon human nature, Which view is more convincing to you?
5. Power and Political Resistance
Institution: Roanoke College
Department: Public Affairs
Date: Fall 2009
Course-level: Advanced undergraduate course
Format: Seminar
Enrollment: 17
Position: Assistant Professor
Questions for final exams:
1. Explain and critically evaluate Marx’s distinction between human and political emancipation.
2. Explain and critically evaluate Marcuse’s definition of one-dimensional thought and behavior in modern societies?
3. Outline and evaluate the main elements of Foucault’s conception of modern power
4. What does Derrida mean by deconstruction? Discuss and provide examples.
5. Outline and critically evaluate Butler’s critique on ethical violence.
6. Studies of Modern Society: 1798 to the Present
Institution: The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York Department: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Date: Spring 2003
Course-level: undergraduate course
Format: seminar
Enrollment size: 24
Position: Adjunct Professor
Sample paper questions:
1.Hannah Arendt, in “Origins of Totalitarianism,” outlines the central components of totalitarian rule. Theodor W. Adorno, in “Elements of Antisemitism” and “Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda,” explains components of fascist rule. Discuss these two thinkers in relation to one another and answer the following questions: What are the similarities/differences of their conceptualizations of totalitarian/fascist regimes? How does propaganda work in these regimes? What is the function of the ruler in totalitarian/fascist regimes?
2.Max Weber, in “Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,” establishes the link between the protestant ethic and the capitalist enterprise. How does he establish this link? What examples does he provide to justify this link? Do you agree with Weber that there is such a link?
3.“Guilt and innocence before the law are of an objective nature, and even if eighty million Germans had done as you did, this would not have been an excuse for you” (Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, p. 278). Analyze Hannah Arendt’s report of the trial of the German Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann in “Eichmann in Jerusalem. A Report on the Banality of Evil” and discuss the following questions: Does Arendt believe that perpetrators in totalitarian regimes are guilty for their crimes they committed under totalitarian rule? How does she conceptualize the perpetrator? Does she believe that those who did not actually commit crimes, but were aware of them, are guilty as well? What does she think is necessary to alleviate the injustice of totalitarian rule?
4.Whereas Sigmund Freud, in “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego,” elaborates libido as the central concept to understand the psychology of groups (p. 29), Le Bon, in “The Crowd,” discusses power, contagion, and hypnosis as the central features that determine the psychology of crowds (p. 18). Discuss these two thinkers in relation to each other and answer the following questions: How does Freud define groups? How does Gustave Le Bon define crowds? What are the similarities and/or differences in their understanding of the psychology of groups/crowds? How do you explain these difference/similarities in their concepts?
7. Texts and Contexts: Old Worlds and New
Institution: The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York Department: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Date: Fall 2002
Course level: undergraduate course
Enrollment size: 22
Format: seminar
Position: Adjunct Professor
Sample paper questions:
1.In What is Enlightenment? the German philosopher Immanuel Kant outlines the two moments why people do not emerge into the state of enlightenment, which is for him a state where people use their own understanding without the assistance of others: 1) people remain in an unenlightened stage because it is comfortable to be there; 2) they remain there because certain people have an interest in keeping others from using their own understanding. Whereas his first point refers to the responsibility of people themselves to remain in a subjected position, the second aspect refers to the power structures within a given society that allow certain people to keep others subjected. Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman outlines those aspects that keep women in a subjected position. Into which Kantian category would you place Wollstonecraft’s elaboration of the subjection of women? What, to her, is the solution that should lead to the liberation of women? Do you find this solution plausible?
2.The colonial theme, expressed in the master-slave relationship between the Europeans and non-Europeans, is expressed in both Shakespeare’s The Tempest, via the figure of Caliban and in More’s Utopia (p. 41). Compare the different assessment of colonial rule in the political philosophy of these thinkers and answer the following questions: What kind of assumptions about the nature of non-European people are expressed in the figure of Caliban and in the discussion of colonial rule in Utopia? What is the problematic aspect of these assumptions? In what ways are these assumptions crucial for the justification of colonial rule?
3.In chapter XVIII of The Leviathan, Hobbes argues that a sovereign by institution cannot commit injustice or injury towards her or his subjects, only inequity, because the subjects have voluntarily established the sovereign via contract. Thus, to Hobbes, they cannot accuse or punish the sovereign. In chapter XXI, Hobbes outlines those moments of inequity that allow the subjects to resist sovereign authority. Mary Astell, in Reflections Upon Marriage, is critical about the sovereign’s commitment to not injure her or his subjects. Like Hobbes, she extends the contract between the sovereign and her or his subjects to the relations between wife and husband. Unlike Hobbes, Astell outlines the injuries the sovereign-husband inflicted against the wife once she has agreed to the marriage contract. First, compare the moments of inequity in Hobbes with the moments of injury or injustice of the sovereign in Astell. Second, contrast the moments of rebellion in Hobbes and Astell. Third, discuss their respective ideas of an ideal government. Which one makes more sense to you?
4.In The Prince, Machiavelli outlines his concept of virtue in his discussion of generosity, mercifulness versus cruelty, and keeping promises. What does Machiavelli understand under the concept of virtue? In what ways is this concept related to his understanding of human nature? Finally, how is this concept related to his philosophy of leadership?