3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

What is revolution and how is it done? Who is up to the task of revolution: the nation, working class, the colonized? How do radicals learn from the mistakes of past revolutions and evaluate the possibility of revolution in their own time? In this course, we will follow a series of debates in political theory in France from forerunners to the French Revolution (Rousseau, Sieyes) through to the aftermath of May 1968 revolts (Kristeva, Badiou, Foucault). The goal of the course is to map these theoretical debates alongside historical events in French history to which these theories are in some way responses and interventions. Besides the two major historical events bookending the course, we will also chart a course through 19th Century and 20th Century developments in the theories of popular sovereignty, violence, decolonization, and revolution (looking to theorists like Blanqui, Sorel, Fanon, Beauvoir, Sartre, and Althusser among others). Beyond the particular French examples discussed in the course, we will also focus on broader questions about the relationship between political theory and history, and we will discuss a variety of approaches to making sense of theory and history alongside one another. No previous familiarity with political theory or French history is expected for this course. Readings in French history will be assigned alongside works of political theory to help contextualize the material.