Political Theories of Empire and Imperialism
Term:
Fall 2012
Subject Code:
GPOL
Course Number:
6655
This is a reading course
for graduate students, surveying important literature in an interesting new
field of study in political theory. Through selections from a number of classic
and recent works, we seek to identify the common characteristics of the various
entities that have been described as “empires”, from ancient Greece to the
present day, and to evaluate the ideas that have been offered as justifications
for imperial projects. Issues for consideration will include: What is an
‘empire’? To what extent are various canonical works of political philosophy
‘imperialist’? Are ‘civilization’, ‘progress’, and ‘development’ inevitably
imperial concepts? Do commerce and capitalism stimulate or suppress
imperialism? Can empire persist after de-colonization? What is the relation of
‘nationalism’ to ‘imperialism’? and is the contemporary United States an
‘empire’?
This course will be taught be Joshua Simon, post-doctoral fellow.
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