Visions of Freedom

Overview

Over the last three hundred years, ideas of freedom have changed the world, contributing to the collapse of monarchy, the abolition of slavery, the promotion of women's rights, the rise of national independence movements, the advent of self-government, the rise of capitalism and the rise of communism.  The idea of freedom remains so powerful that both of the parties in any given conflict often argue that they are its defenders.  How can such claims be assessed?  Do we know what it means to speak of a free people; a free government; a free economy; or of personal or moral freedom?  The aim of this cluster will be to develop a critical understanding of various competing conceptions of freedom and of their historical origins.

Courses

Seminar: Sociology 99FCS Freedom & American Constitutional Law

Bill Tobin, Visiting Professor, Department of Sociology

While the idea of “freedom” occupies a critical place in the American civic tradition, the word rarely appears in American law.  In the American legal system freedom has been uneasily translated into rights.  Much has been altered in this process of translation.  Indeed, the American constitution and more than two hundred years of federal law have defined freedom as individual action and then tightly circumscribed this freedom of action in terms of concrete limited legal rights.

This course examines this ongoing process of translation by introducing students to the constitutional legal framework and the reasoning that follows from this framework.  Then, in order to understand what is lost and what is gained in the shift from freedom to rights, students will explore what the chant “Freedom Now”—heard throughout the American South in the 1950s and 1960s—has meant in the area education and racial integration.  Students will read and analyze Supreme Court cases including Brown v. School Board (1954) and, the Court’s most recent ruling, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education (decided together, 2007).  Students will also have the opportunity to work with attorneys who have (and continue) to struggle to translate freedom into rights in the area of education and race.
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Seminar: English 139CS Liberty & Literature

Michael Valdez Moses, Associate Professor, Department of English

This course aims to introduce first–year students to several of the foundational texts in the British liberal democratic political tradition and to relate these classic works of political philosophy and social criticism to outstanding literary works concerned with the problems and challenges faced by free societies in modern Europe.  “Liberty & Literature” will give special attention to the debates concerning three particular forms of human freedom: political or civil liberty, the free market, and religious toleration.  In order to acquaint students with the diversity of theoretical perspectives on question of modern liberty, the course will treat those thinkers whose writings have proved seminal for modern liberalism and who have offered critical appraisals of the relative strengths and weaknesses of modern liberal democratic culture (John Milton, John Locke, Edmund Burke, Richard Cobden, J. S. Mill, Herbert Spencer, F. A. Hayek). Readings in the history of liberal political philosophy will be integrated with the study of several novels focused on the questions of political and personal freedom.  Novels featured in the course in the past few years include Walter Scott’s Old Mortality, which dramatizes the struggle of 17th century Protestant dissidents in Scotland against monarchic absolutism and religious persecution, and the dangers of a militant religious fanaticism; Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, which represents the conflict between the old semi–feudal world of the southern English counties and the new emerging capitalist industrial centers of the North; George Orwell’s 1984, which explores the distopic alternatives to a liberal society represented by twentieth-century totalitarianism; Kazuo Ishguro’s Never Let Me Go, an alternative history of late twentieth-century Britian in which human clones are bred as involuntary organ donors for the rest of the population; and John Banville’s Dr. Copernicus, a historical novel about the rise of modern science and its political, religious, and cultural consequences in 16th century Europe.  Such novels help to illustrate both the vulnerability of an “open society” and the natural and political foundations on which a free society depends.  As the sole English course offered in conjunction with three other freshman seminars that collectively make-up the “Visions of Freedom” Focus cluster, “Liberty & Literature” gives particular attention both to imaginative works of literature and to the history of British and Irish political writing.
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Seminar: Political Science 85EFCS Freedom & Responsibility

Michael Gillespie, Jerry G. and Patricia Crawford Professor, Department of Political Science; Professor, Department of Philosophy; Director, Gerst Program in Political, Economic & Humanistic Studies

The conflicting visions of freedom and responsibility that characterize the modern world; the possibility of leading ethical lives in the face of the conflicting demands that a complex vision of the good engenders.  Readings include Luther, On Christian Liberty; Hobbes, Leviathan; Locke, Second Treatise of Government; Rousseau, Social Contract; Marx, Communist Manifesto; Kant, The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals; and Jack London, The Call of the Wild.  This course aims to be an intense but lively introduction to Western philosophical ideas of freedom and responsibility.
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Seminar: Political Science 85FFCS Hierarchy & Spontaneous Order: The Nature of Freedom in Political & Economic Organizations

Scott De Marchi, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science

Many thinkers have argued that hierarchy, and some form of imposed coercive organization, is essential to liberty and human self-realization.  Others, however, have argued that the most important kinds of order and action in human societies are spontaneous and voluntary.  Drawing on some of the great works of political and economic thought, this course will evaluate these positions, examining both ideal and real regimes.
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Focus 99 Special Topics in Focus: Visions of Freedom

Scott De Marchi, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science

Students and faculty will meet weekly in this half-credit course to discuss issues of common interest that bridge the topics of individual seminar courses.
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