Instructors: R. Avramenko & Eduardo Schmidt Passos
Time: Mondays, 2:25-5:25pm
Location:
Office Hours:
Office: MJH
Course Objective:
The objective of this course is to introduce students to the central ideas of Conservative Political Thought. Through a series of historically important readings, students will engage in a critical assessment of the origins, evolution, and meaning of conservatism, both in Europe and America.
Required Texts:
Jerry Z. Muller, Conservatism: An Anthology of Social and Political Thought From David Hume to the Present (Princeton University Press, 1997).
Patrick Deneen, Regime Change
Students are required to purchase this edition. This is a text-based course and full participation requires that we navigate and explore the text together⎯that we be on the same page, so to speak. Students must bring the texts to class.
Grades:
Short Essays (4): 80% (4 x 20%)
Participation: 20%
Essays:
The short essays are due by midnight (11:59pm CST) every Sunday. Papers not received by this time are LATE.
Late papers will be penalized one half letter grade per 24 hour period. Thus, if you are 1 minute late, or 24h, it costs you 5%. 24 hours and 1 minute late costs you 10%, and so on.
Participation:
The course is a seminar, which means effectiveness depends on two things: reading and participation. The grading schema is designed to reward both. The participation grade is based on attendance (-2% for each superfluous absence), preparedness, and participation in discussion. Carefully reading the assigned material before each class will go far in ensuring a good participation grade.
McBurney Students: Please let us know if you require reasonable accommodations.
Grades Disputes: Upon return of the papers, we will not discuss your grade for at least 48 hours. If, after two days, you would like to discuss your grade, you must schedule an appointment. You must provide a written memo, in advance, detailing how and why you think your grade ought to be different than assigned. We will evaluate your memo, reread the paper, and determine whether the grade was accurate. If we deem that the grade was too high, it will be adjusted. There are no further appeals.
Honor Code: This course demands adherence to a certain code of honor. As such, we will construe all cheating in this class as a personal insult. Since it is no longer acceptable to get satisfaction in a duel, we will have to recur to a less-than-honorable recourse: we’ll tell on you and fail you. In short, plagiarism and cheating will not be tolerated. If you plagiarize or cheat, you will receive an F for the course and the case will be referred to the Dean’s Office. The use of AI paper-generating technology is plagiarism and violates this honor code.
Schedule:
Week 1: Monday, January 29
Seminar Pt.1: Kant, “What is Enlightenment?”; Kant, “On the Idea of a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent”
Seminar Pt. 2: Jaspreet Boparai, “The French Genocide that has Been Air-Brushed from History” (Quillete)
Movie: “The Scarlet Pimpernel”
Week 2: Monday, February 5
Public Lecture: “The Roots of Resistance in Edmund Burke’s Conservatism” (Ian Crowe, Belmont Abbey College)
Seminar: Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Muller, Introduction (pp. 3-31) & Chapt. 2 pp. 78-122 )
Week 3: Monday, February 12
Public Lecture: “Back from Savagery: French Counterrevolutionary Conservatism” (Ethan Alexander-Davey, Campbell University)
Seminar: Louis de Bonald, “On Divorce” and Joseph de Maistre, “Essay on the Generative Principle of Constitutions and Other Human Institutions” (Muller, Chapter 2, pp. 123-145) & de Maistre, “Considerations on France” (pdf)
Week 4: Monday, February 19
Public Lecture: “Gunpowder Liberty: Conservative Women in the American Founding” (Kirstin Birkhaug, Hope College)
Seminar: Mercy Otis Warren and Abigail Adams
Week 5: Monday, February 26
Public Lecture: “Alexis de Tocqueville’s Liberal Conservatism” (Richard Boyd, Georgetown University)
Seminar: Tocqueville, Ancien Régime, Intro and first 30 pages (Bonner edition, on-line, free)
Week 6: Monday, March 4
Public Lecture: “The Conservative Disposition: Why Conservatism is Not an Ideology” (Jeff Polet, Ford Foundation)
Seminar: Russell Kirk, “Ten Conservative Principles”, and Robert Nisbet, “Prospects for Conservatives” (selections)
Week 7: Monday, March 11
Seminar (Monday): David Walsh, “The Person as the Opening to the Secular World: Benedict and Francis,” in The Priority of the Person; Benedict XVI, “Caritas in Veritate”
Thursday, March 14, 7:00pm (Law School 2260)
Public Lecture: “The Person as the Key to Catholic Social Thought” (David Walsh, Catholic University of America)
Week 8: Monday, March 18
Public Lecture: “Michael Oakeshott and the Conservative Habits of Mind” (Elizabeth Corey, Baylor University)
Seminar: Michael Oakeshott, “On Being Conservative,” and “The Tower of Babel”
Week 9: Spring Break
Week 10: Monday, April 1
Public Lecture: “Conservative approaches to the Law” (Kenneth Kersch, Boston College)
Seminar: Kersch, Conservatives and the Constitution: Imagining Constitutional Restoration in the Heyday of American Liberalism (Cambridge University Press, 2019)
Week 11: Monday, April 8
Public Lecture: “Conservatism and Love of Home” (Mark Mitchell, Patrick Henry College)
Seminar: Wendell Berry (TBA); Roger Scruton
Week 12: Monday, April 15
Public Lecture: “Conservatism on Nature, Sex, and the Question of Womanhood” (Rachel Lu, Liberty Fund)
Seminar:
Week 13: Monday, April 22
Public Lecture: “Why Conservative Have Been Unable to Respond to Identity Politics” (Joshua Mitchell, Georgetown University)
Session 2: Joshua Mitchell, American Awakening (Preface to 2020 Edition (pdf))
Week 14: Thursday, May 2, 7:00pm (Law School 2260)
Public Lecture (Thursday): “Conservatism as Populism: Past, Present, and Future” (Patrick Deneen, Notre Dame University)
Monday, April 29
Seminar: Patrick Deneen, Regime Change: Towards a Postliberal Order (chpts 3 & 5)