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Your search for courses · during 2025-26 · taught by lcooper · returned 7 results
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IDSC 251 Windows on the Good Life 2 credits
Human beings are always and everywhere challenged by the question: What should I do to spend my mortal time well? One way to approach this ultimate challenge is to explore some of the great cultural products of our civilization–works that are a delight to read for their wisdom and artfulness. This series of two-credit courses will explore a philosophical dialogue of Plato in the fall, a work from the Bible in the winter, and a pair of plays by Shakespeare in the spring. The course can be repeated for credit throughout the year and in subsequent years.
- Fall 2025, Winter 2026, Spring 2026
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry
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IDSC 251.01 Fall 2025
- Faculty: Laurence Cooper 🏫 👤
- Size:18
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- MHasenstab 105 3:10pm-4:55pm
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IDSC 251.02 Fall 2025
- Faculty: Laurence Cooper 🏫 👤
- Size:18
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- MHasenstab 105 8:00pm-9:45pm
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IDSC 251.01 Winter 2026
- Faculty: Laurence Cooper 🏫 👤
- Size:18
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- MHasenstab 105 3:10pm-4:55pm
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IDSC 251.02 Winter 2026
- Faculty: Laurence Cooper 🏫 👤
- Size:18
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- MHasenstab 105 8:00pm-9:45pm
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IDSC 251.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty: Laurence Cooper 🏫 👤
- Size:18
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- MHasenstab 105 3:10pm-4:55pm
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IDSC 251.02 Spring 2026
- Faculty: Laurence Cooper 🏫 👤
- Size:18
- Grading:S/CR/NC
- MHasenstab 105 8:00pm-9:45pm
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POSC 160 Political Philosophy 6 credits
Introduction to ancient and modern political philosophy. We will investigate several fundamentally different approaches to the basic questions of politics–questions concerning the character of political life, the possibilities and limits of politics, justice, and the good society–and the philosophic presuppositions (concerning human nature and human flourishing) that underlie these, and all, political questions.
- Winter 2026
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry WR2, Writing Rich 2
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POSC 160.01 Winter 2026
- Faculty: Laurence Cooper 🏫 👤
- Size:30
- T, THHasenstab 002 3:10pm-4:55pm
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POSC 232 PS Lab: Political Philosophy and the Art of Reading 3 credits
Political philosophy inquires into basic matters that most of us take for granted: what is good and bad? what is just and unjust? and why? These inquiries can threaten, or be perceived as threatening, our most dearly held beliefs and all that rests on these beliefs. Political philosophers have often employed arts of writing aimed at veiling their most radical thoughts from all but their most careful and persistent readers. In this course we will study these arts of writing and the arts of reading that they demand of us. We will learn not only about various methods and techniques but also about a philosophic education.
Repeatable: Course is repeatable provided the topics are different.
- Spring 2026
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry
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POSC 232.02 Spring 2026
- Faculty: Laurence Cooper 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- THasenstab 109 3:10pm-4:55pm
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POSC 250 Kings, Tyrants, Philosophers: Plato’s Republic 6 credits
In this course we will read Plato’s Republic, perhaps the greatest and surely the most important work of political philosophy ever written. What are the deepest needs and the most powerful longings of human nature? Can they be fulfilled, and, if so, how? What are the deepest needs of society, and can they be fulfilled? What is the relation between individual happiness and societal well-being? Are they compatible or in conflict with one another? And where they are in conflict, what does justice require that we do? The Republic explores these questions in an imaginative and unforgettable way.
- Fall 2025
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry
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POSC 256 Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil 6 credits
Nietzsche understood himself to be living at a moment of great endings: the exhaustion of modernity, the self-undermining of rationalism, the self-overcoming of morality–in short, stunningly, the “death of God.” He regarded these endings as an unprecedented disaster for humanity but also as an unprecedented opportunity, and he pointed the way to a new ideal and a new culture that would be life-affirming and life-enhancing. This course will center on close study of Beyond Good and Evil, perhaps Nietzsche’s most beautiful book and probably his most political one. Selections from some of his other books will also be assigned.
- Winter 2026
- HI, Humanistic Inquiry
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POSC 256.01 Winter 2026
- Faculty: Laurence Cooper 🏫 👤
- Size:25
- T, THHasenstab 105 1:15pm-3:00pm
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POSC 352 Political Theory of Alexis de Tocqueville 6 credits
This course will be devoted to close study of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, which has plausibly been described as the best book ever written about democracy and the best book every written about America. Tocqueville uncovers the myriad ways in which equality, including especially the passion for equality, determines the character and the possibilities of modern humanity. Tocqueville thereby provides a political education that is also an education toward self-knowledge.
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POSC 352.01 Spring 2026
- Faculty: Laurence Cooper 🏫 👤
- Size:15
- T, THHasenstab 109 1:15pm-3:00pm
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POSC 400 Integrative Exercise
The comprehensive exercise is a substantial (approximately 25-30 page) research paper on a topic within American Politics, Comparative Politics, International Relations, Political Theory, and Public Policy. The student should have completed a 300-level POSC course. The usual comps process starts with a research paper from an already-completed advanced seminar, which is revised or used as an anchor to write the senior thesis, with approval and guidance from the instructor, who becomes the comps adviser. The students must also prepare a poster based on their comps paper for presentation in a group forum.
- Fall 2025, Winter 2026
- No Exploration
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Student is a Political Science and International Relations major AND has Senior Priority.