The Political Thought or Political Theory is the study of how we ought to organize the forces that shape our lives. Among the most immediate and controversial of these forces is government. What is a government? Why should (or shouldn’t) we have one? How should it be organized? When does it become illegitimate? Of course, government is a classic topic (for many fields) and these are classic questions. But! We theorists are an ambitious bunch and we’ve made sure our field has broader horizons. This course will therefore consider the whats, whys, and hows of the economy, culture, ecology, race, gender, spirituality, education, and most everything else that forms our social and political experience. Our project this semester will be to get to know the field of political theory in all its sprawling, weird, fun, challenging vastness. This will involve both historical and contemporary components. The first third of the course will engage the tradition of political theory and philosophy, the second will engage some tensions between basic concepts as they have evolved from this tradition, and the final third will consider a number of pressing topics in contemporary politics. In this way we will lay a historical groundwork that can help us critically engage the core political questions we face in our own lives. I hope that we can read and discuss each of our course materials in three unique (but connected) ways. First, these texts arise from, and shape, history. In reading them, we will consider the way theorists’ works arise from their context while also generating new contexts for subsequent scholars and political practitioners. Second, these texts contain challenging and provocative arguments in which writers are often telling us how we ought to live. We need to be able to understand and address their (perhaps presumptuous) claims if we want to understand and defend our own politics. Finally, these texts are often beautiful in their own funny ways. I love political theory, not just for the history and arguments, but also because the texts are often well-written