Self, Society, and Politics

This course examines the main ways in which the relationship between self, society, and politics has been conceptualized in major sociological and philosophical texts. What are the political implications of different ways of understanding the self? Is it fair to talk about a western individualistic tradition? And how do recent technological changes affect our understanding of who we are and how we interact? The course relies on readings of classical texts, from sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and history. It includes primary texts (Plato, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Émile Durkheim, W.E.B. Du Bois, Michel Foucault, and Judith Butler), as well as recent sociological studies. Particular emphasis is placed on the ways in which social and political theorists have used conceptions of the self as foundation for their views of society and politics.