David Peritz

Democracy and Diversity: Fall Semester Syllabus 2006-2007

David Peritz, Sarah Lawrence College
Monday and Wednesday, 9:30-11:00
Heimbold 211

Course description

Does democracy work only in homogeneous societies that overcome by assimilating sources of difference and diversity? Only in this way, it has long been maintained, can a people be sufficiently similar to form shared political understandings and projects. Absent commonality, democracy deteriorates into the tyranny of the majority or a war of all against all. But we are in the midst of a dramatic shift in democratic politics: democratic societies are increasingly multicultural and diverse, while citizens in democratic societies are less willing to ‘forget’ their ethnic, religious, gender, sexual, cultural, racial and other differences in order to integrate into a dominant national culture. These developments raise some basic questions. Is it possible to achieve sufficient agreement on fundamental political issues in a deeply diverse society? Can the character of political community or the nation be reconceived and reformed? If not, is democracy doomed? Or might it be possible to reform democracy to render it compatible with conditions of diversity? If so, does the democratic claim to legitimacy also need to be transformed? This course will explore these questions in a number of ways. First we study two exemplary historical statements of the ideal of democracy to get our bearings from conceptions developed without attention to the kinds of deep and abiding difference that concern us in the rest of the course. Then we examine the nature of social and cultural diversity, looking at several dimensions that tend to cut across one another in contemporary politics: religion, value, class, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity and culture. In addressing these issues we draw on methodologies and disciplines ranging from sociology and anthropology to ethnic studies and philosophy. In the remainder of the course we bring these themes together by surveying a number of recent attempts to (re-) articulate the relevance of specific identities to political engagement and the general ideal of democracy in light of experiences with increased diversity. Here the disciplinary focus is on reading sustained selections from recent works in political philosophy. We look at these ideas generally and also by considering more specific issues like equality under the law, the compatibility of multiculturalism and feminism, immigration, and education. Finally, we also respond to dominant political events of our recent history by asking: Can the ‘clash’ between non-Western, especially Islamic, and Western cultures be mediated democratically, or is democracy itself a culturally specific, Western form of politics? Should democratic societies seek to foster or impose democratic institutions and practices on other societies or international institutions?

Requirements and Grades

There are three main requirements this term: regular informed participation in class discussion and conferences based on careful reading and critical thought; an interpretive essay of seven to ten pages; and either completion of a term-long conference paper (of roughly fifteen to twenty pages) or satisfactory progress on a yearlong conference project. Occasional exercises may also be assigned. Interpretive essays are due the week after the unit they are based on (or at the end of term in the case of the final unit). The conference paper will count for forty percent of the grade, participation for forty, and the interpretive essays for twenty. (Though not marked on assignments, grades are available upon request.) Extensions will be granted only in the case of a genuine emergency. In the absence of an extension, late assignments will be penalized one third of a grade per day late. Note that class readings are both relatively heavy, averaging between 100 and 200 pages per week, and quite dense.

Absences

Three unexcused class absences are allowed per term. Additional absences will result in loss of class credit. Unexcused conference absences will not be rescheduled and may also lead to loss of credit.

Special Needs

I encourage students with disabilities, including invisible disabilities like chronic diseases and learning or psychiatric disabilities, to contact me regarding specific needs.

Texts

Please use the specific editions listed below, available through the Sarah Lawrence Bookstore. They can also be purchased on line, often for a considerable savings. I recommend websites that link independent bookstores, especially since it is often possible to get these texts used in near-new condition. Advanced Book Exchange, Fetchbook, Alabris, and Amazon's used book service offer this service. Readings will also be drawn from articles and smaller selections from books available on reserve and e-reserve, indicated with a ‘(R)’ below.

Linda Martín Alcoff, Visible Identities: Race, Gender and the Self, Oxford University Press, ISBN: 0195137353
Gerd Bauman, Contesting Culture, Cambridge University Press, ISBN: 052155554X
William E. Connolly, Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox, University of Minnesota, ISBN: 0816640866
Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres, The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy, Harvard University Press, ISBN: 0674010841
Amy Gutmann, Identity in Democracy, Princeton University Press, ISBN: 0691120404
Amy Gutmann ed., - Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition, Princeton University Press, ISBN: 0691087865
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and Other Essays (John Gray, ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN: 0192833847
Jean Jacques Rousseau, On The Social Contract (Roger Masters, ed.), St. Martin’s, ISBN: 0-312-69446-6
Tommie Shelby, We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity, Belknap/Harvard Press, ISBN: 0674019369
Howard Winant, The World Is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy Since World War II, Basic Books, ISBN: 0465043410
Kenji Yoshino, Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, Random House, ISBN: 0375508201

Recommended Background Texts

Robert Dahl, On Democracy; David Held, Models of Democracy, (especially Part I); Ian Shapiro The State of Democratic Theory; Lee Back and John Solomos, eds., Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader; Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, eds., Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror; Héctor Tobar, Translation Nation; Linda Alcoff and Eduardo Mendieta, eds., Identities: Race, Class, Gender, and Nationality.

Weekly Reading And Writing Assignments

Unit I: Democracy: Civic Republican and Liberal Views

Week 1: The Civic Republic Tradition in Democratic Theory: Rousseau

J.J. Rousseau, On The Social Contract, Books I-II, entire, Book III, Chs. 1-2, 4, 10-18, Book IV, Chs. 1-2, 7-8.

Suggested background reading: J.J. Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, Part II; David Held, Models of Democracy, Part I.

Week 2: Liberal-Democratic Thought: J.S. Mill

J.S. Mill, On Representative Government, Chs. 1-4, 6-8, & 14-18.

Suggested background reading: J.S. Mill, On Liberty, Ch. 3; David Held, Models of Democracy, Part II.

Part II: Diversity: Its Nature and Sources

Week 3: Value and Religion

Isaiah Berlin, “The Pursuit of the Ideal” (R)
Charles Taylor, “The Diversity of Goods”  (R)
Charles Larmore, “Pluralism and Reasonable Disagreement” (R)
Jürgen Habermas, “Religion in the Public Sphere” (R)

First Unit Interpretive Essays due Friday, September 22, 5 pm.

Week 4: Class

Karl Marx, “The German Ideology,” selections (R)
Max Weber, “Class, Status, Party” (R)
Georg Lukacs, “Class Consciousness” (R)
Pierre Bourdieu, “Social Space and the Formation of Classes” (R)
Nancy Fraser, “From Redistribution to Recognition” (R)

Class Mapping Exercise due: Wednesday, November 1, at beginning of class

Week 5: Gender

Simone De Beauvoir, “Introduction” to The Second Sex (R)
Monique Wittig, “One is Not Born a Woman” (R)
Catherine A. MacKinnon, “Difference and Dominance: On Sex Discrimination” (R)
Judith Butler, “Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire” (R)
Anne Phillips, “Must Feminists Give Up on Liberal Democracy?” (R)

Gender Mapping Exercise due: Wednesday, September 27, at beginning of class

Week 6: Sexual Orientation

Kenji Yoshino, Covering: The Hidden Assault on our Civil Rights, selections.

Week 7: Culture

Amy Gutmann, ed., Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, essays by Taylor, Habermas and Appiah.

Gerd Baumann, Contesting Culture, chs. 2-3, ch. 4, pp.72-8 & pp.98-108, ch. 5, pp.109-16, chs. 6-7

Recommended background reading: Hegel, “Independence and dependence of self-consciousness: Lordship and Bondage;” Freud, “Consciousness and What is Unconsciousness;” Mead, “The Self” (all in Linda Alcoff and Eduardo Mendieta, eds., Identities: Race, Class, Gender, and Nationality).

Suggestions for further reading: Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, “The Hidden Politics of Cultural Identification;” Patchen Markell, “The Distinguishing Mark: Taylor, Herder and Sovereignty”

Week 8: Ethnicity

October Study Days: no class on Monday

Max Weber, “Ethnic Groups” (R)
Harold R. Isaacs, “Basic Group Identity: The Idols of the Tribe” (R)
Daniel Bell, “Ethnicity and Social Change” (R)
Stuart Hall, “Old and New Identities, Old and New Ethnicities” (R)

Week 9: The Sociology of Race

Howard Winant, The World is a Ghetto, pp.1-176, 289-316.

Week 10: The Many Faces of Race in America

Each student reads two of four clusters of articles choosing one from 1 & 2 and one from 3 & 4. Specific assignments made in class in prior week. All readings on reserve.

Cluster 1:

W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Conservation of Races”
Tzvetan Todorov, “Race and Racism”
Frantz Fanon, “The Fact of Blackness”

Cluster 2:

James Barrett and David Roediger, “How White People Became White”
Charles Gallager, “White Racial Formation: Into the Twenty-First Century”
Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege and Male Privilege”
Kathleen Neal Cleaver, “The Antidemocratic Power of Whiteness”

Cluster 3:

C.J. Kim, “The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans”
Samuel Huntington, “The Hispanic Challenge,” Foreign Policy
Héctor Tobar, Translation Nation (selections)

Cluster 4:

Jonathan Kozol, “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid,” Harpers, v.311, n.1864, 1 September, 2005.
Kim M. Williams, “Multiracialism & the Civil Rights Future”
Claire Jean Kim, “Unyielding Positions: A Critique of the ‘Race’ Debate”

Racial Mapping Exercise due: Wednesday, November 8, at beginning of class

Part III: Identity and Democracy

Week 11: Race Solidarity and Race Betrayal

Tommie Shelby, We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity
Noel Ignatiev, “How to be a Race Traitor” (R)
David Theo Goldberg “Resisting Racisms, Eliminating Exclusions” (R)
Ruth Frankenberg, “White Women, Race Matters” (R)

Second Unit Interpretive Essays due: Friday, November 17, 5 pm.

Week 12: The Ethics and Politics of Identity

Thanksgiving Break, no class Wednesday, November 22
Extra film viewing session: ‘Crash’

Linda Martín Alcoff, Visible Identities: Race, Gender and the Self, (selections)

Suggestions for further reading: Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Ethics of Identity, Chapters 3-4; Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity.

Week 13: Race and Democracy

Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres, The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy (entire)

Week 14: Identity and Difference Deconstructed

William E. Connolly, Identity/Difference.
William E. Connolly, “The Desire to Punish” (R)

Week 15: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Identity Politics

Amy Gutmann, Identity and Democracy

Third Unit Interpretive Essays due Friday, December 15, 5 pm.

Suggestion for further readings

(selections marked with an ‘*’ are strongly recommended)

The Republican Tradition

• David Held, “Classical Democracy: Athens” in Models of Democracy
• Thucydides, “The Funeral Oration of Pericles” in Thucydides, The Peloponnesian Wars, Book II, paragrapsh 34-46.
• Aristotle, The Politics (preferably the Carnes Lord translation), Books 1 & 3-7.
• Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), Prologue, Parts I, II, V & VI.
• Martha Nussbaum, “Aristotelian Social Democracy,” in Liberalism and the Good, Douglass, Mara & Richardson, eds.
• Stephen Holmes, “Aristtippus In and Out of Athens,” American Political Science Review (1979).
• Quentin Skinner, Machiavelli
• Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government

Liberal-Democratic Thought

• John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government,
• The Federalist Papers, d. Clinton Rossiter, (New York: Signet)
• John Rawls, A Theory of Justice

Value and Religious Diversity

• Amy Gutmann, ed., Multiculturalism
• Will Kymlicka, ed., The Rights of Minority Cultures
• Seyla Benhabib, ed., Democracy and Difference
• Joshua Cohen, “Moral Pluralism and political consensus,” in David Copp, et. al., eds., The Idea of Democracy
• Richard J. Bernstein, “Incommensurability and Otherness Revisited,” in The New Constellation: The Ethical-Political Horizons ofModernity/Postmodernity
• Bernard Williams, “Conflicts of Value,” in Moral Luck
• Jürgen Habermas, “Religion in the Public Sphere,” European Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 14, No. 1, (2006), pp.1-25.
• Robert Audi and Nicholas Wolterstorff, Religion in the Pubic Square: The Place of Religious Conviction in Political Debate.
• Kent Greenawalt, Religious Convictions and Political Choice.
• Kent Greenawalt, Private Consciences and Public Reasons.
• Michael J. Perry, Religion and Politics: Constitutional and Moral Perspectives.
• Lucas Swaine, A Liberalism of Conscience.
• Jeffrey Stout, Democracy and Tradition.
• Paul Weithman, Religion and the Obligations of Citizenship.

Ethnic Diversity

• Horace M. Kallen, Culture and Democracy in the United States
• Randolph Bourne, “Transnational America,” in C. Resek, ed., War and the Intellectuals: Essay by Randolph S. Bourne, 1915-1919
• Nathan Glazer, Ethnic Dilemmas: 1964-1982
• Michael Walzer, ed., The Politics of Ethnicity
• Stephan A. Thernstrom, Ann Orlov, Oscar Handlin, eds., Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups
• Richard T. Schaefer, Racial and Ethnic Groups
• John E. Farley, Majority-Minority Relations
• Mary C. Waters, Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America
• Eugene E. Roosens, Creating Ethnicity: The Process of Ethnogenesis
• David Hollinger, Post-Ethnic America
• Michael Lind, The Next American Nation
• Christopher Newfield and Avery F. Gordon, Mapping Multiculturalism
• James S. Friders, ed., Multiculturalism and Intergroup Relations
  
• Crawford Young, ed., The Rising Tide of Cultural Pluralism: The Nation-State at Bay
• David Bennett, ed., Multicultural States
• Will Kymlicka, ed., Ethnicity and Group Rights

Race, Racism, and Democracy

• The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois.
• An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, Vols. 1 & 2, by Gunnar Myrdal.
• Philip A. Klinkner with Rogers M. Smith, The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America
• Desmond King, Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy
• Amy Gutmann and Kwame Anthony Appiah, Color Conscious
• Melissa Williams, Voice, Trust, Memory
• George Fredrickson, Racism: A Short History
• Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s
• Linda Alcoff and Eduardo Mendieta, eds.,Identities: Race, Class, Gender, and Nationality.
• Scott Malcomson, One Drop of Blood The American Misadventure of Race.
• David Shipler, A Country of Strangers: Blacks and Whites in America.
• Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America.
• David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class.
• David R. Roediger, Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Become White: The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs.
• George Lipsitz, The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics by.
• Richard Delgado, ed., Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror.
• Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s.
• Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton, American Apartheid : Segregation and the Making of the Underclass.
• Kimberle Crenshaw et al., eds., Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement.
• Danielle Allen, Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education.
• George Fredrickson, Racism: A Short History
• Howard Winant, The World is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy since WW II
• Héctor Tobar, Translation Nation: Defining a New American Identity
• Linda Martín Alcoff, Visible Identities: Race, Gender and the Self
• Tommie Shelby, We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity
• Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres, The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy

Cultural Diversity

• Joppke & Lukes, eds., Multicultural Questions
• David Bennett, ed., Multicultural States
• Smesler & Alexander, eds., Diversity and Its Discontents
• Shweder, Minow and Markus, eds., Engaging Cultural Differences

Liberal Theories of Diverse Democracy

• *John Rawls, Political Liberalism
• Charles Larmore, Patterns of Moral Complexity
• Charles Larmore, The Morals of Modernity
• Bruce Ackerman, Social Justice in the Liberal State
• J. Donald Moon, Constructing Community
• *Monique Deveaux, Cultural Pluralism and Dilemmas of Justice
• Will Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular
• John Tomasi, Liberalism Beyond Justice: Citizens, Society, and the Boundaries of Political Theory.

Multicultural Democracy

• Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism (Amy Gutmann, ed.)
• Will Kymlicka, ed., The Rights of Minority Cultures
• *Charles Tully, Strange Multiplicity
• *Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy

Contextual Theories of Multicultural Democracy:

*Joseph Carens, Culture, Citizenship and Community: A Contextual Exploration of Justice as Evenhandedness
*Melissa Williams, Voice, Memory, Trust

Against Multicultural Democracy

• Jacob Levy, The Multiculturalism of Fear
• Brian Barry, Culture and Equality
• Paul Kelly, Ed., Multiculturalism Reconsidered

Critical Theory and Postmodernism

• Jurgen Habermas, The Inclusion of the Other
• Thomas McCarthy, Ideals and Illusions
• Richard Bernstein, The New Constellation
• Seyla Benhabib, ed., Democracy and Difference
• *James Bohman, Public Deliberation
• *Simone Chambers, Reasonable Democracy
• *William Connolly, Identity/Difference
• William Connolly, The Ethos of Pluralization
• William Connolly, Pluralism
• *Bonnie Honig, Democracy and the Foreigner

The Politics of Recognition and Plural Citizenship

• Charles Taylor, “The Diversity of Goods”
• Charles Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition”
• Charles Taylor, “Invoking Civil Society”
• Charles Taylor, “Liberal Politics and the Public Sphere”
• Charles Taylor, “Why do Nations Have to Become States”
• Charles Taylor, “Shared and Divergent Values”
• Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition?
• Patchen Markel, Bound by Recognition

Democracy, Diversity and Education

• *Amy Gutmann, Democratic Education
• Benjamin R. Barber, An Aristocracy of Everyone: The Politics of Education and the Future of America
• *Eamonn Callan, Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy
• Alan Ryan, Liberal Anxiety and Liberal Education
• *Martha C. Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education
• *Stephen Macedo, Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy

Is Multiculturalism Good or Bad for Women?

• *Ayelet Shachar Multicultural Jurisdictions : Cultural Differences and Women's Rights
• *Susan Moller Okin, et al, Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?
• Iris Marion Young, Throwing Like a Girl
• Iris Marion Young, Inclusive Democracy
• Martha C. Nussbaum, Sex and Social Justice
• *Jodi Dean, Solidarity of Strangers : Feminism After Identity Politics
• Martha Minow, Making All the Difference: Inclusion, Exclusion the American Law

Multiculturalism and Law

• *James Tully, Strange Multiplicity
• *Jeremy Waldron, Law and Disagreement
• Jeremy Waldron, The Dignity of Legislation

Multiculturalism Abroad

• Michael H. Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics
• J.E. Kelsay, D. Little, & Abulaziz Sachedina, eds., Human Rights and the Conflict of Cultures: Western ad Islamic Perspectives on Religious Liberty
• Henry Shue, Basic Rights
• Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs. MacWorld
• Anthony D. King, Culture, Globalization and the World-System, chs. 1, 4, 5, 6.I & 6.II.
• Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
• Abdulaziz Sachedina, The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism
• Roxanne Euben, Enemy in the Mirror: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Limits of Modern Rationalism
• John Rawls, The Law of Peoples
• Danielle Archibugi, David Held, Martin Kohler, eds., Re-Imagining Political Community: Studies in Cosmopolitan Democracy, Part I
• Danielle Archibugi, David Held, Martin Kohler, Daniele Archibugi, eds., Re-Imagining Political Community: Studies in Cosmopolitan Democracy, Parts II & III
• Jurgen Habermas, The Postnational Constellation
• Noah Feldman, What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building
• Francis Fukuyama, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy
• Benjamin Barber, Fear’s Empire: War, Terrorism, and Democracy
• Cornel West, Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism
• Khaled Abou El Fadl and Joshua Cohen, eds., Islam and the Challenge of Democracy
• John L. Esposito and John O. Voll, Islam and Democracy
• Dale F. Eickelman and James Piscatori, Muslim Politics
• Robert W. Hefner, eds., Remaking Muslim Politics:Pluralism, Contestation, Democratization
• Robert W. Hefner, Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia
• Daniel Bell, East meets West
• Khaled M. Abou El Fadl, The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists
• Joseph Lumbard, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islam, Fundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition : Essays by Western Muslim Scholars Tariq Ramadan, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam
• Tariq Ramadan, Islam, the West, and the Challenges of Modernity