Political Science Department
Course Schedules and Seminar Descriptions

Course schedule information for Political Science, as well as all other William Paterson academic departments, is now available on-line from the Registrar's office. Click here to access course schedules. Since you will be leaving the Political Science Department pages to go to the course schedules, you will need to click the "Back" button on your browser a few times to return here.

Seminar Descriptions

Here we will try to post as they become available descriptions of all the seminars that we will be offering for the next few years.

• Spring 2009
• Protest and Repression in the USA: WWII - Present
  Prof. Christine Kelly, POL 480-01, Tuesday-Thursday 11:00-12:15 p.m.
  
  In this seminar, we will explore the theories and realities of American protest movements since WWII. This is not a survey course of American political movements, but a specific inquiry into the relationships between popular outbreaks and structural inequalities, US institutional arrangements, and state policing power. Select "moments" prior to WWII will be quickly covered. The course will then focus on the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam anti-war movement, the feminist and sexual autonomy movements, and the current anti-globalization and Iraq anti-war movements. We will examine dominant academic explanations of protest in the US for their usefulness in explaining the rise and effect of protest and also consider movements' self-understandings. Together, through the readings, writing and seminar discussion we will focus on the following questions:
  
  1. What are the limits in the US system to mass democratic movements?
  2. What role have protest movements played in American politics since WWII? Before?
  3. Under what circumstances do US protest movements arise? Is there a pattern?
  4. How have protest movements in the US changed since the WWII? Why?
  5. What makes a movement effective?
  6. Have policing strategies of US movements changed since the WWII? What effect have policing strategies had on movements?
  7. Similarly, has media coverage of movements changed? What role does the media play?
  8. How much does movement ideology matter? Strategy and tactics?
  9. How has "globalization" affected US protest movements?

 

• Global Environmental Politics
  Prof. Aaron Tesfaye, POL 480-60, Tuesday 6:00-8:40 p.m.
  
  This seminar explores global politics of environmental problems that confront humanity and the efforts of the world community to address them. It will focus on issues such as population, food, energy production/consumption, water scarcity, but will also take up dumping of hazardous waste, climate change and global warming. It will examine the different perspectives of rich and poor countries on the environment through the lens of international political economy, such as development, trade and finance, and how they directly impact environmental policies. Students will critically engage these topics with concepts and methodologies emerging from the fast-growing literatures on international institutions, transnational activism, multi-level governance, green foreign policy, environmental valuation, local resource regimes, and science-policy linkages.

 

• Fall 2008
• Politics and the Arts
  Prof. Michael Thompson POL 480 Monday 6-8:30
  
  This course will explore the intimate connection between politics and artistic production.
  Throughout history, politics and art were expressions of the striving for human freedom and development. From the architecture and plays of Ancient Greece through the modern age, art and politics have been intertwined. We will examine the relationship between art and politics in order to gain a historical grasp of this sadly under-studied aspect of politics. In addition, we will consider the ways that art and culture play an important role in forming political sensibilities and also look at the ways art has been used for prpagandistic purposes. Everything from film, literature, painting, and architecture will be the objects of our investigation as well as the major thinkers who tried to link art and politics: Plato, Machiavelli, Milton, Schiller, Rousseau, Voltaire, Hegel, Marx, Jefferson, among many others.