The Limits of Liberalism

This graduate seminar will explore different angles of criticism of the various ideas and doctrines that have accumulated over the last three centuries under the omnibus label ‘liberalism’. Its approach will be part intellectual history and part analytical.  One question that will inform our inquiry is whether these criticisms should be seen as dissenting positions within the political Enlightenment, wrestling with a dominant ‘liberal’ tradition within it, or whether their logic leads to a more radical refusal of the entire framework of Enlightenment modernity. Though most of the readings are works of theory, a serious attempt will be made to situate theoretical themes in the political and cultural contexts of particular parts of the world, both in the past and the present.