Goucher College 2021-2022 Undergraduate Catalogue 
    
    Mar 28, 2024  
Goucher College 2021-2022 Undergraduate Catalogue PLEASE NOTE: This is an archived catalog. Programs are subject to change each academic year.

CPEC 206 - Democracy’s Spell (4 Cr.)

(GCR Humanities and Interdisciplinary Studies area)


What is democracy? Where did it come from? Why is democracy the standard by which we judge all political regimes? Why do various individuals on both sides of the left-right political divide call themselves “small-d democrats?” Is something that is un-democratic necessarily bad? What was the nature of the relationship between democracy and American slavery; between democracy and race? How does democracy intersect with gender norms and family life? Is democracy an exclusively electoral-governmental phenomenon or is it also a cultural-social phenomenon? This course seeks answers to those questions by investigating various pre-democratic and democratic phenomena. Historical case studies will come primarly from the United States, France and Britain, but select examples will also be drawn from Germany, Austria, Russia, Spain, Haiti, and Mexico. The last three topics to be discussed in the course are: Black Atlantic abolitionism; Black nationalism; and Donald Trump and Trumpism. Students are limited to one CPE course per semester. Hale