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This course is your chance to read one of the most important works in Western thought, Thucydides' War Between The Pelo-ponnesians and The Athenians. The work is an account of a war that took place over the course of twenty-seven years (432-404 B.C), a war in which democratic Athens very nearly defeated oligarchic Sparta in a bid to become rulers of the known world. Thucydides intended this work to serve as a guide for future ages, or to be, in his famous words, "something useful...a pos-session for all time." For this reason, we are not reading the work out of mere antiquarian interest. Instead, we‟ll carefully examine the deeds and speeches of the war as narrated by Thucydides in order to find solid guidance in the face of permanent problems and issues of political life.

Thucydides could not have provided us with this kind of guidance if his work were a naively edifying, heroically inspiring, or merely cautionary tale. He presents us with the deliberations of statesmen engaged in actual political life at a time when that life happened to be most revealing of itself. As we read his work, we see the deeds of outstanding statesmen who are engaged in a struggle over the objects of their longing, freedom and empire. We hear their speeches as they attempt to move others to pursue their goals, in accordance with their opinions of what is advantageous and what is just or noble. Thucydides writes in such a way that we become more than vicariously engaged with these participants. He orders and presents the participants ’ speeches and deeds so that we are deeply moved by them. We become receptive to the participants ’ deliberations, in-structed by their victories and their defeats, their glory and their shame. By examining the careers of outstanding political leaders, and discovering what those careers have to teach us about the greatness and the limits of political life, we are forced to reflect on ourselves and our own lives.

For example, Thucydides invites us in the first book to take a stand on the difficult question of which side -Athens or Sparta – was more to blame for bringing on the war. Were the Athenians guilty of breaking the 50-year peace treaty between them and Sparta, as the Spartans argue? Or were the Athenians compelled, as they claim all human beings are always com-pelled, to pursue their own advantage over and against the self-sacrifice that justice demands? Thus, by inviting us to take a stand on the origin of the war, and to defend our stand, Thucydides forces us to examine a permanent human concern, one that is likely to be deepest and to demand our most serious reflection: our concern for justice.

Some of the other permanent issues and concerns that Thucydides ’ work will help us examine are the following: What are the causes of war and the conditions of peace? What are the causes of imperialism? What are the arguments for and against it? Is capital punishment justified? What (if any) is the proper place of anger in political deliberation? What praise do citizens of democracy and of oligarchy give to these two different political regimes? How do their praises compare to what the book–– the course of the war––reveals about those two regimes? Thucydides presents us with statesmen whose belief in or doubt of divine intervention in human affairs decisively affects their actions; what role does religion play in political life? What forms of religion should wise statesmen encourage or discourage in healthy political life?

This one credit course introduces students to the political institutions and decision making processes of the European Union and major internal and external policy issues and debates. Students who wish to expand their knowledge of the European Union and its member states are welcome to enroll in the course as are students who plan to participate in Model European Union.

Have you considered how Facebook became a $50 billion company, simply by collecting its members’ personal in-formation, or how your latest Wall post could cost you your job? Why does Google save every search, email and text message, and how do Netflix and Amazon make such personalized suggestions? What about a cell phone or your car giving your current location not only to your friends and family, but also to your employer, insurance company and to law enforcement? How do governments, here and abroad, monitor their citizens’ behavior and what does this mean for life in an open, democratic society? New technologies increasingly raise privacy issues in areas as diverse as identity theft, spyware/hacking, drug testing and workplace surveillance. In addition, the post-9/11 focus on na-tional security has raised new concerns about government intrusions into personal privacy, from airport body scan-ners to customs inspections of laptops and cell phones. This course provides an in-depth look at information pri-vacy law and related technology issues, using philosophical, historical, legal, policy and technical perspectives to ex-plore a variety of issues relating to uses, and misuses, of private information. In this discussion-based seminar, stu-dents will develop advocacy skills in classroom debates, while individual in-class presentations and final projects will allow students to explore related topics in greater depth.