A History of Civil Disobedience
COL 109
Spring 2019 not offered
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This course will explore some classic readings on civil disobedience and nonviolent political resistance in literature, history, and philosophy. We will examine connections between some key moments in the history of intellectual thought in fifth-/fourth-century BCE Athens and the 19th/20th century. The lives of Socrates, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. will be the focus of our study, though we will also read works of Greek tragedy (Sophocles), comedy (Aristophanes), and history (Thucydides), and various different political tracts on civil disobedience from the modern period, including writings by Percy Shelley, Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Doris Stevens, Rabindranath Tagore, George Orwell, and John Rawls. The course will conclude by examining the use and relevance of nonviolent political action in the 21st century. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA COL |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (PHIL)(PHIL-Philosophy)(PHIL-Social Jus) |
Major Readings:
Sophocles, ANTIGONE
Thucydides, excerpts from HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
Aristophanes, LYSISTRATA, CLOUDS
Plato, APOLOGY, CRITO
Thoreau, selected writings
Tolstoy, LETTER TO A HINDU, and excerpts from THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU
Gandhi, excerpts from HIND SWARAJ and THE STORY OF MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH
Orwell, REFLECTIONS ON GANDHI
Martin Luther King, Jr., LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL, and selected writings
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Examinations and Assignments:
Two 4-5 page papers (each with a mandatory rewrite)
One 6-7 page final paper
Group presentation
Class participation |
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