REVOL/RAD POLITICS-MARX-MAY'68

This seminar will expose students to classical texts in political theory relating to revolutionary action, political ethics and social militancy from the Communist Manifesto to 1968. The course will explore the idea of revolutionary ethics as conceived by Western and non-Western political philosophers and militants. The discussion will stress the connection between philosophers and revolutionary leaders and the transformation of the idea of radical politics through the dialogue between these two discourses (the philosophical and the militant) and the public reception of revolutionary events in the media and commemorative writings. Authors will be examined according to their historical context and their role in the tradition of political thought and the history of radical politics from 1848 to the mid-sixties. Students will be exposed to different discourses of political militancy and radical politics and to reflect on the ethical implications of the history of radical thought and action in comparative perspective.