CoursesShakespeare and Political Ethics (NEW)
PSCI 4603, Section 301

Shakespeare and Political Ethics (NEW)

This seminar explores the question of Shakespeare as a political theorist by reading six of his plays, examining them in conjunction with the work of prominent theorists of politics, including Aristotle, Machiavelli, Locke, Nietzsche, Max Weber, Joseph Schumpeter, and Hannah Arendt. Our goal will be to link the dramatization of politics to its theorization, so that we can better understand and interrogate key institutions and practices of modern citizenship and the modern state.
Instructor(s)
  • Jeffrey Green
Semester

Spring 2026

Register
T 5:15pm-8:14pm

We will pay special attention to such topics as the nature of charisma and charismatic authority, competing models of popular power, the varieties of apoliticism and their significance, the moral status of thinking, the role of fortune in political affairs, a critical appraisal of the will to know, and the idea of natural law. The six Shakespeare plays to be read as part of the course are: Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, Hamlet, Richard II, Othello, and The Tempest. This course is open to both graduate students and undergraduates.

Related Content

Other Courses of Interest

COML 0523.301

Life Writing as Dialogue: Autobiography, Memoir, Auto Fiction and the Diary (NEW)

Instructor(s)

  • Batsheva Ben-Amos

Semester

Spring 2027

When we read autobiographies, diaries or memoirs we expect the writing to be all about the individual writer. This Life Writing as a Dialogue course will use several autobiographical genres (autobiography, memoir, diary and auto fiction), to support students’ understanding of how relational dialogic processes are used in such genres to construct self and group identity.

Learn More
LAWM 538

Engineering Law and the State (New)

Instructor(s)

  • Justin (Gus) Hurwitz

Semester

Spring 2026

This course explores the relationship between engineering, law, and the state to develop an understanding, on the one hand, of the mechanisms by which technology affects political processes and, on the other hand, how political processes regulate technological designs. It does so by using engineering principles as a lens to introduce and discuss foundational concepts from political philosophy, jurisprudence (legal theory), positive political theory, and economics. The course has the express goal of bringing engineering fields into dialogue with the humanities and social sciences and facilitating dialogue between those disciplines.

 

Learn More