Listed in: Political Science, as POSC-433
Jonathan M. Obert (Section 01)
What are the origins of human civilization? What causes political, economic or categorical inequality? What explains the rise of the West or the collapse of complex political orders? Where do states, empires, cultures, religions, organizations, and markets come from? How do technologies, catastrophes, geography, demography, and ideas shape social change? Taking its cues from the recent rebirth in scholarly interest in these issues, this research seminar will investigate the very biggest questions confronting empirical social science. It will introduce students to this literature and provide them with an opportunity to engage in debates across fields and disciplines. Class readings will be drawn from a range of important historical and contemporary works covering eclectic historical eras, geographic contexts, and topics. We will identify the assumptions informing accounts offered by different scholars and will interrogate how the framing of big questions entangle us in new and sometimes controversial ways of thinking about human biology, social structure and agency. Students will also reflect in an original research paper on how - and, indeed, whether - such big questions can be answered.
Requisite: One political science course. Limited to 18 students. Spring semester. Associate Professor Obert.
How to handle overenrollment: Political science majors given preferences.
Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: An emphasis on written work, readings, independent research.
Section 01
Tu 1:00 PM - 3:45 PM WEBS 215
This is preliminary information about books for this course. Please contact your instructor or the Academic Coordinator for the department, before attempting to purchase these books.
| ISBN | Title | Publisher | Author(s) | Comment | Book Store | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference | Bay Back Books | Malcolm Gladwell | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Minds make societies : how cognition explains the world humans create | Yale University Press | Pascal Boyer | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Theories of social order : a reader (2nd edition) | Stanford Social Sciences - 2nd edition | Michael Hechter and Christine Horne. | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States | Yale University Press | James C. Scott | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow | Harper Perennial | Yuval Noah Harari | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| The decline and rise of democracy : a global history from antiquity to today | Princeton University Press | David Stasavage | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Guns, germs, and steel : the fates of human societies | W.W. Norton | Jared Diamond. | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| War & Society | Polity | Miguel A. Centeno, Elaine Enriquez. | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| The dawn of everything : a new history of human | Picador | David Graeber and David Wengrow. | This book is not a required purchase, but a suggested one | Amherst Books | TBD | |
| The Origins of Political Order | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | Francis Fukuyama | This book is not a required purchase, but a suggested one | Amherst Books | TBD | |
| The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History | W. W. Norton | 9780393925685 | This book is not a required purchase, but a suggested one | Amherst Books | TBD | |
| The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century | Princeton University Press | Walter Scheidel. | This book is not a required purchase, but a suggested one | Amherst Books | TBD |
These books are available locally at Amherst Books.