Below is a list of teaching materials separated into two categories: courses I have taught or am teaching and courses for which I have served as teaching assistant.
Instructor of Record
"Introduction to Political Theory" (Spring 2025)
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course introduces students to political theory through an examination of some of the most influential texts of Western political thought. The first part investigates the birth of political philosophy in ancient Greece, beginning with Hesiod’s mytho-poetic account of the world before exploring a few Socratic questions raised by it and their relation to the trial and death of Socrates at the hands of his fellow citizens. The second part of the course turns from the origins of philosophy to the systematic treatment of political questions by philosophers. Drawing primarily upon Aristotle, it explores questions of who should rule, the nature of justice, varieties of regime, civil strife, and revolution. The third part then takes up the problem of tyranny. It begins with Plato’s account of the devolution of regimes from philosophical rulership at its highest to tyranny at its lowest. With Xenophon, it then raises the question of whether tyranny benefits the tyrant who succeeds in grasping it. Section four then turns to the education of a ruler through a close reading of Machiavelli’s The Prince and selections from his Discourses on Livy. Section five then examines early modern theories of the state, while part six explores the aftereffects of enlightenment ideas on modern politics. Finally, section seven returns to the question of philosophy’s role in politics through the writings of Hannah Arendt.
"War and Peace in Modern Political Thought" (Fall 2024)
COURSE DESCRIPTION: Why do wars occur? Are there fundamental differences between interstate and civil wars? What can the prevalence and persistence of war teach us about politics? Is a more peaceful world possible? If so, how might we achieve it? This course explores these and related questions through a selection of readings from the history of modern political thought. Beginning with Machiavelli, Bacon, Hobbes, and Spinoza, the course examines the origins of a secular science of war and peace in the early modern period. It then turns to the economic, geographic, military, and gender determinants of war and peace in Montesquieu, Hume, Rousseau, and Wollstonecraft before taking up the question of perpetual peace in Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, and Marx. It ends with an examination of nationalism, imperialism, and colonialism through the writings of Nietzsche, Lenin, Arendt, and Du Bois along with antecedents to contemporary international relations theory in Morgenthau, Butterfield, and Herz.
