PSCI 331
Knowledge and Politics Spring 2014
Division II
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Is there a form of knowledge proper to politics? What are the risks and promise of turning to the sciences to supply or guarantee that knowledge (as we do, in different ways, when we call the study of politics “Political Science” or when we call for “science-based policies”)? In this class, we will engage several recent works at the intersection of political theory and science studies that reopen the question of science’s proper relationship to politics. These works challenge critical theory’s traditional assumption that scientific knowledge is, at best, impotent and, at worst, imperious in the context of politics. Yet in defining a more productive role for the sciences in politics, they do not take for granted that science is what its traditional advocates often took it to be: objective, dispassionate… in short, a-political. Works we will consider may include William Connolly’s Neuropolitics, Isabelle Stengers The Invention of Modern Science, Karen Barad’s Meeting the Universe Halfway, Bruno Latour’s Politics of Nature, Mark Brown’s Science in Democracy, and Joseph Rouse’s Knowledge and Power.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 15
Expected: 15
Class#: 3425
Grading: OPG
Requirements/Evaluation: weekly response papers; 15-page term paper; class participation
Extra Info: may not be taken on a pass/fail basis
Prerequisites: prior course in Political Theory, Critical Theory or Philosophy, or permission of instructor
Enrollment Preferences: Political Theory concentrators, then Political Science majors
Distributions: Division II
Attributes: ENVI Humanities, Arts + Social Science Electives
ENVP PTL-A Group Electives
ENVP SC-B Group Electives
PSCI Political Theory Courses

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