Amherst College
Political Science 56
Spring Semester 2008
Regulating Citizenship
Professor Kristin Bumiller
Departments of Political Science and
Women’s and Gender Studies
Course Description:
This course considers a fundamentalissue that faces all democratic societies: how do we decide when and whether toinclude or exclude individuals from the rights and privileges of citizenship?In the context of immigration policy, this is an issue of state power tocontrol boundaries and preserve national identity. The state also exercisespenal power that justifies segregating and/or denying privileges to individualsfaced with criminal sanctions. Citizenship is regulated not only through thedirect exercise of force by the state, but also by educational systems, socialnorms, and private organizations. Exclusion is also the result of poverty,disability, and discrimination based on gender, race, age, and ethnic identity.This course will describe and examine the many forms of exclusion and inclusionthat occur in contemporary democracies and raise questions about the purposeand justice of these processes. We will also explore models of social changethat would promote more inclusive societies. This course will be conductedinside the Hampshire County Jail and House of Corrections and enroll an equalnumber of Amherst students and residents of the facility. This “Inside-Out”model for teaching within a correctional institution was developed by LoriPompa at Temple University.
Course Requirements:
Students are required to completethe assigned readings before class and come prepared to discuss them. Aftereach class students must complete a short summary of the reading and discussion(at least one page) to be turned in the following week. Class participation willbe structured to give everyone the opportunity to participate and contribute.Excellence in class participation will be taken into consideration whendetermining the final grade. A group project will be due the last week of thesemester. The project will be presented in class and should culminate in anapproximately ten page paper.
Course Materials:
Thearticles will be duplicated and distributed in a reading packet. In addition,the following four books are required:
Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism
Zygmunt Bauman, Work, Consumerism and the New Poor
J.M. Coetzee, The Lives & Times of Michael K.
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
Weekly Reading Assignments:
January 30
PREPARATION FOR THECOURSE
(Amherst andHampshire County Students Meet Separately)
February 6
PARTICIPATORYDEMOCRACY or WHAT IS A CITIZEN?
Monique Lanoix, “The Citizen in Question.” Hypatia, Fall 2007
Jeff Manza and Christopher Uggen, Locked Out, Chapters 6 and 7
Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation
February 13
THEORIZINGCITIZENSHIP
John Locke, Two Treatises of Government. Book II, Chapters I and II, VII, IX
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, pp. 55-58, 101-122.
Sheldon Wolin,“Fugitive Democracy” in Seyla Benhabib, ed. Democracy and Difference:Contesting the Boundaries of the Political,pp. 31-45
February 20
LOSING CITIZENSHIP
Franz Kafka, “Before the Law”
J.M. Coetzee, The Lives & Times of Michael K.
February 27
TOTALITARIANISM
Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism
Richard J.Bernstein, “The Origins of Totalitarianism: Not History, but Politics,” SocialResearch, Summer 2002, pp. 381-401
March 5
EXCLUDING CITIZENS
Aihwa Ong, Buddha is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, theNew America, pages 48-65.
Film: The Killing Fields
March 12
EDUCATION ANDDEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP
John Dewey, Democracyand Education, Chapter Seven: “TheDemocratic Conception in Education”
Henry A. Giroux,“Schooling, Citizenship, and the Struggle for Democracy,” in Schooling andthe Struggle for Public Life
Peter McLaren andJuan S, Munoz, “Contesting Whiteness: Critical Perspectives on the Struggle forSocial Justice,” in Carlos J. Ovando and Peter McLaren, Multiculturalism andBilingual Education
SPRING RECESS
March 26
CITIZENS AS CONSUMERS
Karl Marx, Selections from Early Writings and Capital
Zygmunt Bauman, Work, Consumerism and the New Poor
Beatriz da Costa,et al. “Surveillance Creep! New Manifestations of Data Surveillance at theBeginning of the Twenty-First Century,” Radical History Review, Spring 2006, pp. 70-88.
April 2
REGULATINGINDIVIDUALS
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punishment, pp. 73-89
John S. Ransom, Foucault’sDiscipline, Chapter II: Disciplines and theIndividual, pp. 26-58
William G.Staples, “Small Acts of Cunning: Disciplinary Practices in Contemporary Life,” TheSociological Quarterly, 1994, pp. 545-664.
April 9
DISOBEDIENT CITIZENS
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
TheAutobiography of Martin Luther King, “ALetter from the Birmingham Jail,” pages 187-204
April 16
REGULATING THE POOR
Sudhir AlladiVenkatesh, Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, Chapter 1, pp. 1-20 and Chapter 4, pp. 166-213.
Devah Pager, “TheMark of a Criminal Record,” American Journal of Criminology, March 2003
Todd Clear, Imprisoning Communities, Chapter 1, pp. 3-13.
April 23
WAR AND CITIZENSHIP
Rasul v. Bush. U.S.Supreme Court, 2004 (Justice Stevens, Majority Opinion)
Amy Kaplan, “Where is Guantanamo?” American Quarterly, pp 831-858.
April 30
IMPRISIONED CITIZENS
Phil Scranton and Linda Moore, “Degradation, Harm andSurvival in a Women’s Prison”
Richard Quinney,“The Life Inside: Abolishing the Prison,” Contemporary Justice Review, September 2006
Film: Up the Ridge: A US Prison History
May 7
CITIZENSHIP ANDFREEDOM
Amartya Sen, Identityand Violence: The Illusion of Destiny,Chapter 6: Culture and Captivity, pp. 103-119 and Chapter 9: Freedom to Think,pp. 170-186
Final Project Presentations and Closing Ceremony