Full Description
Political theory deals with profound questions about human nature, political principles, and the limits of knowledge. In Teaching Political Theory, Nicholas Tampio shows how political theorists may take a pluralistic approach to help students investigate the deepest levels of political life.
The book shares advice about how to design a political theory course, including selecting reading materials, writing lectures, making assignments, and creating experiences for students. More than a how-to manual, the book also shows how political theorists may profitably stage conversations between American, Chinese, European, and Indian political thinkers. After reading this book, political theorists will gain ideas about how to read and teach ancient sceptics like Sextus Empiricus, Chinese Daoists like Zhuangzi, African American abolitionists like Sojourner Truth, and Indian philosophers like B.R. Ambedkar.
Written by an editor of the journal Comparative Political Theory, this book offers insights to political theorists at all stages of their career on how to energize their research and teaching methods.
Contents
Contents:
Preface vii
1 Teaching political theory: a pluralistic approach 1
PART I DESIGNING A POLITICAL THEORY COURSE
2 Crafting a syllabus, with illustrations from American
political thought 23
3 Writing lectures, with illustrations from Chinese and
European political thought 43
4 Making assignments, with illustrations from Indian and
African American political thought 76
PART II TEACHING POLITICAL THEORY TODAY
5 Teaching Greek political thought, with a focus on Sextus
Empiricus 120
6 Teaching Chinese political thought, with a focus on Zhuangzi 141
7 Teaching neuroscience in a political theory course 168
8 Teaching the public, with examples from education policy 192
