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Politics of the Crowd

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Politics of the Crowd Senior Seminar: Politics of the Crowd Government 405-02 Professor Rebekah Sterling Fall 2013 - College of William & Mary Email: [email protected] Monday 5:00-7:30pm Office: Morton 32; Tel: 757 221 3087 Location: Morton Hall 37 Office Hours: M 3-4:30pm & Th 10:30am-12pm, or by appointment “The age we are about to enter will in truth be an ERA OF CROWDS.” - Gustave Le Bon “There are in fact no masses; there are only ways of seeing people as masses.” - Raymond Williams Since ancient times, democracy has been associated with the crowd. On the one hand, democracy has long carried connotations of both number and space: both the rule of the many and the politics of the people assembled in public, in the agora or the popular assembly. On the other hand, many ancient and early modern writers also associated democracy and crowds with violence and ignorance, portraying “the people” as a fickle crowd and democracy as tantamount to ochlocracy — mob rule. In modernity, revolutionary politics, changing social conditions, and the rise of representative government prompted new fears and fascinations about crowds and masses, as well as new forms of collective and popular politics, such as mass meetings, rallies, and marches. In many ways, the crowd and the masses become focal points for anxieties about modern life and politics: worries about conformity, irrationality, overpopulation, the lower classes, totalitarianism, political apathy, and more. Yet the crowd remains an ambiguous figure, sometimes the monstrous “other” of the people, the sovereign liberal individual, or the rational public, and sometimes a potent symbol of collective action and popular power. In this class, we will explore various faces of the crowd and other collectivities in order to reflect on the challenges and possibilities for collective – and especially democratic – politics in modernity. What difference does it make, for our understanding and practice of democratic politics, to “see” collectivities as crowds, masses, publics, or something else (the people, society, the nation…)? In what ways do competing ideas and representations of crowds, masses, and publics illuminate or obscure aspects of democratic politics, action, and speech? What can it mean, politically, to be part of a collective: a group, a crowd, a mass, a public? Is the crowd a purely negative, destructive, or irrational force, or can crowd politics generate fruitful forms of solidarity or positive political change? What is the political significance of the aesthetics of crowds – both the bodily dimensions of crowd experience and the mediated representations of the crowd in literature, art, or film? What is the relationship between the crowd, the public, and public space? Is there space, in modern democracy, for the crowd? We will explore these questions through theoretical, historical, and literary readings, images, and other media on crowds, masses, and publics, past and present. 1 Required Books: The following books are on order at the College Bookstore. Please make sure to get these editions, so that we’re all on the same page. All other course readings will be posted on Blackboard. Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. Edited by Elizabeth Rapaport. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1978 [1859]. (ISBN: 9780915144433) Le Bon, Gustave. The Crowd: a Study of the Popular Mind. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2002 [1895]. (ISBN: 9780486419565) Dewey, John. The Public and Its Problems. Chicago: Swallow Press, 1954 [1927]. (ISBN: 9780804002547) rtega y asset, ose. The Revolt of the Masses. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993 [1930]. (ISBN: 9780393310955) Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998 [1958]. (ISBN: 9780226025988) Canetti, Elias. Crowds and Power. Translated by Carol Stewart. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984 [1960]. (ISBN 9780374518202) Course Requirements in brief Midterm essay 20% Two blog entries 15% (7.5% each) Participation 15% Research Presentation 10% Research Proposal (P/NP) Final research paper 40% Note: To pass the course, students must complete ALL the course requirements and must receive a passing grade for participation. Key Dates: Monday, Sept. 2 First day of class Thurday, Oct. 10, 5pm Midterm paper due Monday, Oct. 14 No class; Fall Break Thursday, Oct. 31 Research proposal due Monday, Nov. 25 Student research presentations Monday, Dec. 2 Student research presentations; last day of class Wednesday, Dec. 11 Final research paper due Assignments and Requirements: Detailed instructions and grading guidelines for each assignment will be distributed in class. Participation: The seminar format involves a collaborative, in-depth exploration of a topic. Thus active participation is essential to the class. All students should come prepared, having completed all readings before class, and with the readings in hand, ready to be discussed (including printouts of Blackboard readings). The discussion should be, as much as possible, a conversation among all of us. Be respectful and attentive to one another. It is important that we all work to maintain a space 2 where everyone has the opportunity to contribute, and where we can debate and sometimes disagree thoughtfully and respectfully. Your participation grade will reflect the quality (not just quantity) of your in-class and online participation: your contributions during class and your comments on others’ blog posts (in weeks you aren’t assigned to write a blog post). Regular attendance is also necessary, but not sufficient, for a good participation grade. In evaluating your participation, I will consider the following: Have you done the reading thoroughly and are you thinking carefully about it? Are you contributing respectfully to discussion, both in speaking and in listening and allowing others to speak? Are you adhering to relevant course policies (regular on-time attendance, no laptops, phones, etc.)? Note: Students who receive an F for participation, whether because of excessive absences and/or tardiness, inappropriate conduct, or unsatisfactory contributions, will receive an F for the semester. Midterm Essay: Students will write a short 6-8 page essay on texts and themes from the first half of the class. Blog Entries: Over the course of the semester, each student will be required to write two blog entries containing critical reflections on the readings. I will distribute a sign-up sheet at the beginning of the semester. Blog posts should be approximately 350-500 words long (equivalent to about 2 double-spaced pages). They should be focused, analytic responses to the assigned readings for the day (i.e. not a summary), and they should conclude with some questions that we might discuss in class. Blog entries are due by midnight on the evening before class (i.e. due Sunday night at 11:59pm). All students are expected to read others’ blog posts before class, and, in the weeks you’re not assigned a blog post, you should respond to others’ posts with a short but thoughtful comment. Research Paper: The most significant assignment is the final research paper, worth 40% of the final grade. Students will write a paper of around 20 pages on a topic of their choice, relevant to the course readings and themes. Papers will incorporate scholarly secondary sources, and might also include analysis of additional primary sources or texts beyond those assigned in class. All students must discuss their proposed topics with the professor in office hours. Research Proposal: Several weeks before the paper is due, students must submit a research proposal and preliminary bibliography. This proposal should explain the question or problem they plan to address, the provisional argument and main claims, and the sources that the paper will use. Students are required to meet with the professor in office hours to discuss their proposals, and students must have their topics approved. The research proposal will be graded graded pass/fail. Failure to submit the research proposal will result in an F for the final paper and an F for the semester. Research Presentation: In the last two weeks of class, all students will give brief presentations about their work-in-progress for the final paper. These presentations will enable you to get feedback from the class, and will also help you focus your research and writing by articulating key claims, challenges, and/or questions for others. I will distribute guidelines for these presentations. 3 Library Session (to be confirmed): Our class will likely have a required workshop with one of the librarians, to explore research techniques for your final paper. The date and time will be confirmed later in the semester. Course Policies: Attendance: Students are expected to attend all class sessions, barring illness, emergency, or other unavoidable situations, to arrive on time, and to stay for the entire class period.* Students who anticipate absences due to religious observance or other circumstances should meet with the professor at the beginning of the semester to discuss appropriate arrangements. If you must miss class because of illness or another legitimate reason, please notify the professor as soon as possible. Note that you are responsible for all material covered, and for getting notes from a classmate. Repeated absences and/or tardiness will hurt your grade. Since we only meet once per week, students who miss class more than 2 times for any reason can expect to lose at least a full letter grade from their participation grade, and for that grade to drop proportionally with further absences. *See also the W&M attendance policy, in the Undergraduate Catalog: http://catalog.wm.edu/content.php?catoid=5&navoid=633&returnto=search#Class_Attendance Electronic devices policy: Computers, cell phones, e-readers, and other electronic devices may not be used during class; they must be turned off and put away. Exemptions will only be granted for documented medical need or other legitimate need, with appropriate documentation from the office of the Dean of Students. Deadlines, late penalties, and extensions: Deadlines are strict, and papers submitted after the deadline will be subject to a full letter-grade penalty per day.
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