PHIL 785.001 – Advanced Studies in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics

Instructor: Luc Bovens. This course meets M 4:00 – 6:30 p.m. in CW 213.

This graduate seminar will focus on demographic sorting and polarization in the current political landscape in the US. We will read some recent writings on socialism, liberalism, libertarianism, conservatism, and populist nationalism. We will investigate how different demographic groups are trending on contested political issues. We will study the explanatory potential of survey research and the problems with forecasting election outcomes.

Requirements for the course are student presentations and a term paper. The course satisfies the ethics and value theory distribution requirement for students who focus on aspects of political philosophy in their presentations and term paper. It satisfies the logic and philosophy of science distribution requirement for students who focus on aspects of the methodology and philosophy of the social sciences in their presentations and term paper.

PHIL graduate students: Please refer to our Handbook (page 6, #9) for information regarding distribution requirements.

Permission of the instructor is required to enroll in this course. PHIL grad students are exempt from this enrollment requirement.