Tragedy and Order in Classical Political Thought

The world of ancient Athens is at once inescapably remote and enduringly familiar. It is the setting in which the Western tradition of political thought began. As we do today, its greatest authors struggled at once to probe the sources of chaos and tragedy and to imagine in their midst the conditions of lasting political order. In this course we will read closely the Iliad of Homer, the History of Thucydides, selected tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides, the Republic of Plato, and the Politics of Aristotle. (Political Theory) 3 hrs. lect.