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Overview of the Pilot Curriculum General Education Requirement
2004-2005 Pilot Curriculum General Requirement Course Descriptions

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Course Description:

Are you a conservative or a liberal? Whatever your answer, this course will challenge common political identifications in a time of deepening polarity, and ideological agitation.

The conservative tradition in politics is old, and some of the greatest political theories are conservative. Most are based on assertion of tensions in human existence, which might be mitigated, but never eliminated, by political action and institutions. In practical terms conservatives are skeptical about abstract doctrines and grand schemes of human improvement, ready to allow local preferences their own legitimacy and more inclined to think of politics as a limited activity than a project for renovation of mankind. This course focuses on Anglo-American conservatism and among the authors we shall read are Edmund Burke, the Southern Agrarians, Disraeli, and Oakeshott.

Requirements: Assessment will be by a mid-term examination and a final essay on a topic assigned.

Students must register for lecture and recitation.

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