PO 498H

This course explores major traditions of critical political thought in comparative perspective, moving beyond ethnocentric and disciplinary boundaries. Students will examine how different intellectual traditions have understood and critiqued modernity, focusing on three central questions: (1) What is modernity and where does it begin? (2) What is the relationship between race, colonialism, and modernity—is it contingent or intrinsic? (3) What is the relationship between rationality, freedom, and modernity—is modernity ultimately emancipatory or oppressive? To address these questions, the course brings into dialogue several major traditions of critical political thought. We will examine debates within Western critical theory alongside perspectives from Latin American liberation and decolonial thought, Afro-Caribbean and Black radical traditions, and contemporary Indigenous political thought. Throughout the course, we will explore how these traditions understand the relationships among colonialism, capitalism, race, democracy, recognition, and freedom, and how these shape competing visions of political critique and emancipation. By placing these traditions in dialogue, students will examine competing understandings of modernity, colonialism, race, freedom, and political critique while considering what a genuinely global critical political theory might require today.