Democracy, Power, & Freedom

a Discovery Core Experience

This course may be taken as either BCORE 115 (Arts & Humanities) or as BCORE 117 (Social Sciences)

About This Course

Few would argue that freedom is a central value of democracy, yet our political discourse and policies reveal substantial disagreement about what freedom means. In this class, we will read authors who approach the issue of freedom as a question with many different answers.

What Will We Be Doing?

We will examine what they see as the most pressing threats to it, as well what social conditions best permit it to flourish, from a range of perspectives including liberalism, existentialism, Marxism, anarchism, communitarianism, and critical race theory.

In so doing, we will also consider how their visions of freedom and related critiques of domination and oppression are nested in broader theories concerning selfhood and identity, economics, and the role of government in ordering social life. By exploring freedom as a democratic question, we will gain a deeper understanding of freedom as a concept, as well as appreciation for the diversity of democratic ideals.

Dr. Jason Lambacher (he/him/his)

School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences

About Dr. Lambacher

TEACHING: Political Theory, International Relations, Environmental Political Theory, Environmental Ethics, Global Environmental Politics, Global Justice & Activism, Philosophy

Ph.D. Political Science, University of Washington 2013

Contact:

Dictators fear laughter more than bombs.

Arthur Koestler

I acknowledge that I live and work on the un-ceded ancestral lands of the Coast Salish people and pay my respects to elders past and present.