American Thoughts and Thinkers - JMM340

• Title: American Thoughts and Thinkers
• Guaranteed by: Department of North American Studies (23-KAS)
• Faculty: Faculty of Social Sciences
• Actual: from 2012 to 2012
• Semester: summer
• E-Credits: 6
• Examination process: summer s.:
• Hours per week, examination: summer s.:2/0, Ex [HT]
• Capacity: 50 / unknown (35)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Additional information: http://tucnak.fsv.cuni.cz/~calda/index.html
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment; priority enrollment if the course is part of the study plan
• Guarantor: doc. PhDr. Miloš Calda
• Teacher(s): doc. PhDr. Miloš Calda

Annotation

English

Last update: CALDA (05.05.2005)

The course covers main currents of American social and political thought from the colonial times to the late 20th century. The main emphasis of the course will be placed on the careful study of texts.

Czech

Last update: CALDA (05.05.2005)

Kurs probíhá v anglickém jazyce. Účastníci studují hlavní proudy amerického sociálního a politického myšlení od koloniální éry až do sklonku 20. století. Důraz je kladen na studium textů.

Literature

Last update: CALDA (05.05.2005)

Texts provided by the instructor, mostly in electronic form. For other materials, please check the course box in the TGM Library at Jinonice.

Requirements to the exam

Last update: CALDA (02.03.2013)

1. regular attendance (you may miss the maximum of 3 lectures per term)
2. submission of a paper by the last week of the Summer Term. NO PDF FILES!

Co představuje plagiát?

(A) Použití veškerých citovaných textů v seminárních a kvalifikačních pracích musí splňovat tyto podmínky: (1) začátek a konec citované pasáže musí být opatřeny uvozovkami; (2) citujeme-li z periodik či knih, je nutno uvést - zpravidla v poznámce pod čarou nebo vysvětlivce - autora, název díla, rok vydání a stránku, z níž je citováno; (3) v případě citací z internetových zdrojů je nutno uvést full internetovou adresu, na níž lze citovaný text dohledat, a datum návštěvy internetové stránky.

(B) Pokud budou v uvedených pracích zjištěny přejaté texty bez výše uvedených náležitostí, bude práce považována za plagiát a předána Disciplinární komisi FSV UK. 

Academic fraud

(A) Any use of quoted texts in seminar papers and theses must be acknowledged. Such use must meet the following conditions: (1) the beginning and end of the quoted passage must be shown with quotation marks; (2) when quoting from periodicals or books, the name(s) of author(s), book or article titles,  the year of publication, and page from which the passage is quoted  must all be stated in footnotes or endnotes; (3) internet sourcing must include a full web address where the text can be found as well as the date the web page was visited by the author.

(B) In case the use of any texts other than those written by the author is established without proper acknowledgement as defined in (A), the paper or thesis will be deemed plagiarized and handed over to the Disciplinary Commission of the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Syllabus

English

Last update: CALDA (05.05.2005)

1. Colonial:

John Winthrop, Christian Experience

Roger Williams (1603-1683), Plea for Religious Liberty

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758): Sinners in the Hands of Angry God

2. Enlightenment and Revolution I

Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography (excerpts)

Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists (1772)

James Madison: Federalist 10, 51

3. Enlightenment and Revolution II

Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence

Thomas Jefferson: Notes on the State of Virginia (excerpt)

Alexander Hamilton: Report on Manufactures (excerpt)

4. Transcendentalists

William Ellery Channing, Unitarian Christianity

Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

Emerson, Self-Reliance

Emerson, Politics

5. Abolitionism:

William Garrison

Frederick Douglass

Abraham Lincoln

6. Social Darwinism

Herbert Spencer: Social Darwinism (excerpts)

William Graham Sumner, What the Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1883)

7. Progressivism and Pragmatism

John Dewey

8. Social Critique and Radical Thought

Lewis Mumford,

David Riesman,

C. Wright Mills

Noam Chomsky

9. Leo Strauss and the Chicago School of Political Philosophy:

Leo Strauss, …

Allan Bloom: The Closing of the American Mind (excerpts)

Harry V. Jaffa: Leo Strauss, the Bible, and Political Philosophy

Neil G. Robertson: The Closing of the Early Modern Mind: Leo Strauss and Early Modern Political Thought

Thomas West, Review of the Closing of American Mind, by Allan Bloom

10. Conservatives and Neoconservatives

Russell Kirk: Lord Acton on Revolution

Harry F. Jaffa: The False Prophets of American Conservatism

11. Recent Academic Philosophers

Robert Nozick: Anarchy, State, and Utopia (excerpts)

Robert Nozick: Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?

John Rawls: A Theory of Justice

(excerpts)

Czech

Last update: CALDA (05.05.2005)

Kurs probíhá výhradně v anglickém jazyce. Viz podrobný sylabus v anglické verzi této stránky.