Constitutional Studies (CNST)
CNST 20001 Introduction to the First Amendment: Freedom of Expression in Law and Culture (3 Credit Hours)
This introductory course surveys the core texts, doctrines, ideas, and cultural controversies related to First Amendment protections for free expression. We will be especially interested in some large questions: what is expression? How have our ideas of freedom of expression evolved as we enter the digital age? What kind of expression should be permissible? What happens when the public forum is fully online? What is the relationship between free expression and democratic-self government? Is there a difference between individual, group, and government speech? How do we navigate alternative ways of thinking about free expression in a global media ecosystem? We will consider a selection of exemplary cases, controversies, and literary texts: among our topics will include the following: the transformation of speech in the age of digital media; libel, satire and parody; piracy, intellectual property and copyright; privacy and surveillance; hate speech and incitement; obscenity and pornography. We will investigate the topic by studying relevant case law, literary texts (including fiction, film and new media), political philosophy, and information policy. Disclaimer: you will encounter speech that is potentially offensive and discomforting in this course. Note: this is an Office of Digital Learning Course: most of our readings and some course materials will be provided at no cost through an interactive digital platform.
CNST 20002 American Politics (3 Credit Hours)
This course surveys the basic institutions and practices of American politics. The goal of the course is to gain a more systematic understanding of American politics that will help you become better informed and more articulate. The course examines the institutional and constitutional framework of American politics and identifies the key ideas needed to understand politics today. The reading and writing assignments have been designed not only to inform you, but also to help develop your analytic and research skills. The themes of the course include the logic and consequences of the separation of powers, the build-in biases of institutions and procedures, the origins and consequence of political reforms, connections between demographics and politics, and recent changes in American politics in the 21st century. This semester we will emphasize the significance of the upcoming elections. Although the course counts toward the Political Science major and will prepare prospective majors for further study of American politics, its primary aim is to introduce students of all backgrounds and interests to the information, ideas, and academic skills that will enable them to understand American politics better.
Corequisites: POLS 22100
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSS - Core Social Science
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 20003 Keeping The Republic (3 Credit Hours)
Back in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked what kind of government the new American Constitution created. He responded, "a republic, if you can keep it." Today, many people are asking whether the republic-and thus democracy in America-as we know it will survive. Trust is low, polarization is high, and longstanding democratic norms are being shattered left and right. Some scholars have even suggested that the US is on the brink of a new civil war. Others, however, argue that things are not as bad as they seem.
This course tackles the big questions about current state of democracy in the United States. Is the US actually a democracy? (And is that different than a republic?) If so, how, when, and why did it become a democracy? Will the US remain a democracy? Finally, what role can YOU play in keeping the republic?
This course is designed for students of all backgrounds and majors. Whether you have thought a lot or a little about the state of democracy in America, you are welcome in this class.
Corequisites: POLS 22101
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSS - Core Social Science
CNST 20200 World Politics (3 Credit Hours)
This course will focus on the relationship between democratic institutions, peace, and economic/human development. While drawing on lessons from North America and Europe, we will focus largely on countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. During the semester, we will discuss and debate the merits of various explanations or hypotheses that political scientists have proposed to answer the following questions: Why are some countries more "developed" and democratic than others? Is development necessary for democracy or democracy necessary for development? What is the relationship between culture, development, and democracy? How do different types of political institutions affect the prospects for development and democracy? Should/how should U.S. and other established democracies promote democratization? By the end of the course, the objectives are that students (1) learn the most important theories intended to explain why some countries are more democratic and "developed" than others, (2) understand the complexity of any relationship between democracy and development, and (3) grow in the ability to think about and intelligently assess the strengths and weaknesses of strategies intended to promote democracy and development.
Corequisites: POLS 22400
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSS - Core Social Science
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 20403 Introduction to Criminology (3 Credit Hours)
Introduction to Criminology provides students with an overview of the sociological study of law making, law breaking and the resulting social responses. In this class we not only look at a variety of crimes, but we also discuss the varying methods sociologists use to collect, interpret and evaluate data, as well as how we theorize about crime and punishment. We address questions such as "Why are some people or groups labeled as criminal, while others are not?" "Do laws in both their construction and enforcement serve everyone's interests equally?" "How can the communities in which people are embedded be considered as criminogenic?" "How are poverty, race, gender and other social factors related to crime?"
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSS - Core Social Science
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 20405 Introduction to Public Policy (3 Credit Hours)
Public policy could be fairly described as applied social science. This course will introduce you to the fundamentals of public policy by (1) understanding how policy is crafted, (2) detailing the linkages between public opinion and public policy, (3) appreciating how political institutions may bound policy outcomes, (4) and exploring the ability of special interests, and other parties, to shape policy outcomes all while introducing you to various tools and frameworks for approaching the study of public policy. These tools will draw from an understanding of human behavior (psychology), markets (economics), governments (political science), and organizations (sociology) and introduce you to policy analysis. We will use a case study approach to delve into current public policy controversies including healthcare, higher education finance, and infrastructure. This course acts as the primary introductory course for the Hesburgh Minor in Public Service, but is designed for students of all majors and interests.
CNST 20600 Classics of Political and Constitutional Theory (3 Credit Hours)
An examination of a number of the fundamental texts in political and constitutional theory, with an emphasis on works of special importance to the British and American political systems.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSP - Core 2nd Philosophy
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 20602 Political Theory (3 Credit Hours)
This course is an introduction to political theory as a tradition of discourse and as a way of thinking about politics. The course surveys selected works of political theory and explores some of the recurring themes and questions that political theory addresses, especially the question of justice. This introductory course fulfils the political theory breadth requirement for the political science major.
Corequisites: POLS 22600
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSP - Core 2nd Philosophy
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 20608 Theology, Ethics, and Business (3 Credit Hours)
This course is intended to be an introduction to Catholic moral theology customized for those discerning a career as a business professional. In the wake of ethics failures at a number of prominent corporations, business leaders have renewed their call for ethical behavior and have begun to establish criteria for hiring morally thoughtful employees and to institute ethics education in the workplace. In the first part of the course, we will examine Catholic theological ideas about conscience and how it functions in the process of making a moral decision. In the second part of the course, we will examine a selection of Catholic writings on the idea of vocation and calling, as well as the nature of human work, the relationship between workers and management, and the norms of justice that ought to govern these relations. Finally we will examine ideas about character and virtue to assess the challenges and opportunities for moral formation in a business context. Class format will combine analysis of theological texts and discussion of business cases. Course requirements include a midterm and final examination and a group project.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKDT-Core Devlopment. Theology
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 20609 The Church and Empire (3 Credit Hours)
The formation of Christians' communal identity, theological imagination, and social practices have always been worked out - whether implicitly or explicitly - in relation to empire. This course explores this complex theological and historical relationship between Church and empire with particular attention to the ways Christian communities have attempted to resist the onslaught of pre-modern and modern imperialism in order to preserve the integrity of various aspects of the gospel of Christ. In the process of this exploration we will attempt, as a class, to discern some general characteristics of a counter-imperial Catholic ethos or spirituality by paying close attention to the ways the Church has compromised, negotiated, or resisted empire concerning images of Jesus, the effects of baptism, the scope of Christ's Eucharistic presence, and the legitimate modes of evangelization at the Church's disposal.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKDT-Core Devlopment. Theology
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 20611 Political Philosophy (3 Credit Hours)
In this course, we will ask how we should understand the social ideals of freedom and equality, and how these ideals should be realized in a just society. To help us approach these questions, we will read a series of major philosophical works from the last fifty years, each of which falls within a distinct tradition of political thought. The traditions represented by the works we will read are liberalism, libertarianism, socialism, and anarchism. We will consider the alleged strengths and weaknesses of each tradition's distinctive approach to political justice, and explore each tradition's implications for current political controversies. Which particular controversies we focus on will be determined, in part, by a class vote.
Students majoring or minoring in political science, economics, sociology, or peace studies may be especially interested in this course.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSP - Core 2nd Philosophy
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 20613 Roman History I: the Republic (3 Credit Hours)
We will use ancient sources, material evidence and modern scholarship to attempt and reconstruct the first seven centuries of Roman history, broadly speaking, from the foundation of Rome (and the murder of Remus) to the murder of Julius Caesar and the civil war. Throughout the course, we will ask two main questions: how did the Romans manage to transform their small town into a world power in a few centuries? That is, why did the Romans, and not any other people, manage to conquer and unify the entire Mediterranean? Secondly, we will discuss the political, social and cultural consequences of this transformation. These questions exercised the Romans themselves, and some of the responses they gave will be considered in light of current scholarship. Within a broad chronological framework, we will also discuss aspects of daily life in ancient Rome: what was life like for normal people, including women and slaves, in the Roman Republic? And how was the majority of the people affected by historical change?
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
CNST 20615 History of Rome II: The Empire (3 Credit Hours)
This course examines the history of the Roman Empire, from the establishment of a veiled monarchy under Augustus to the Christianization of the empire following the reign of Constantine (ca. 1st century B.C. to 5th century A.D). Throughout the course, we will analyze and interpret ancient textual and archaeological evidence, from both Italy and the provinces, to assess the multi-faceted institutions and cultures of the Roman people. This body of material includes the writings of emperors (Augustus, Marcus Aurelius) and ancient historians (Tacitus, Suetonius, Ammianus Marcellinus), as well as the personal letters of Pliny to the emperor Trajan. Major themes discussed in the course include the nature of despotism, dynasties and the problem of succession; imperial governance of the Mediterranean (central, provincial, and local); cultural diversity and acculturation (so-called "Romanization"); religions and the imperial cult (worship of the Roman emperor); citizenship; urbanism, politics, and the economy; mortality and ecology; and the discrepant identities of women, children, slaves, freedmen, and freeborn under the imperial system of Rome.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
CNST 30002 Constitutional Law (3 Credit Hours)
This course introduces the basic themes of the American constitution, its historical development, and debates in constitutional politics. The course employs a variety of instructional methods including Socratic method lectures, class debates, and moot court exercises in which students play the role of lawyers and justices arguing a Supreme Court case. Students will explore the social and political struggles that have defined the allocation of constitutional power, including debates over presidential war-powers, states' rights, judicial supremacy, federal power to enforce civil rights, and the recent healthcare controversy.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSS - Core Social Science
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30003 U.S. Civil War Era, 1848-1877 (3 Credit Hours)
This course begins in 1848 and examines the coming of the Civil War, the experience of the war itself, and the period of Reconstruction up to 1877. The emphasis will be on the political, social, cultural, and legal events and decisions that were made by governmental and civilian participants, by men and women, by whites and blacks. Why were so many willing to go to war? What did they believe each side was fighting for? The sectional conflict touched every aspect of American life. In order to understand it fully, we will read not only political speeches, military reports, and judicial decisions, but also poetry, fiction, and private letters. We will examine the beliefs and values of veterans and nurses, of abolitionists and slave owners, of politicians and voters. We will also consider the way historians evaluate the war and the way in which the public remembers it.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30004 Law and Religion in US History (3 Credit Hours)
This course focuses on the historical tension between Americans' support for religious liberty under law and their belief that religious faith was essential to the success of the Republic. It will examine both official legal discourse, such as judges' rulings and popular understandings of the law as expressed in speeches and letters. Religious faith has taken many forms in the United States and so have the debates over its proper relation to the state Americans argued over how to define religious liberty. They argued over which religion best suited a republic. Some said God had made certain people inferior to citizenship, while others shot back that God had made all people equally capable. One man's piety was another man's oppression. One woman's equality was another woman's blasphemy.. We will look at the colonial background and the founders' concerns, the 19th century and its myriad of reform movements and state building, religion's role in legal thought and education, the Scopes Monkey Trial, pacifism during time of war, the Civil Rights movement and its opposition, and the rise of the New Right. Discussion will be the primary mode of instruction. In addition to a mid-term and final, there will be short writing assignments and an essay.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30006 Topics in Civil Liberties/Civil Rights (3 Credit Hours)
This course explores topics in American constitutional law related to civil liberties and civil rights. The course employs a variety of instructional methods including Socratic method lectures, class debates, and moot court exercises in which students play the role of lawyers and justices arguing a Supreme Court case. Students will explore the social and political struggles that have shaped freedom and equality in the United States, including debates over protest, hate speech, pornography, religious freedom, gun control, abortion, race, gender, and homosexuality.
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30012 The American Revolution (3 Credit Hours)
When speaking of the American Revolution, many writers reach for a comment made by John Adams in 1818 that, "[T]he Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people. . ." Whether this assertion is true historically or not, it still does not adequately describe what that revolution was. The American Revolution obviously had its political elements, primarily the formation of the United States. To reach its political goals, military means were necessary. Without a successful War for Independence, there would have been no revolution. To leave matters there, however, would be insufficient. A fuller understanding of the revolution would need to address how it affected the whole spectrum of American life. It would consider the revolution as a social movement that challenged the political and social hierarchies of the day. It would also ask how the revolution affected those who were not white males, especially women, slaves, and Native Americans. Without considering the possible negative implications of the revolution, any telling would be incomplete. This class will take up these challenges and attempt to make a full-orbed presentation of the events surrounding the American Revolution. It will introduce students both to elites and to those whom the popular narrative glosses over. It will attempt to count the losses, as well as the gains, which flowed from the move to independence from Britain. Finally, it will attempt to describe the many changes through this period, which resulted, not only in a new political nation, but in a new society and culture--changes that in varying degrees are still with us today and of which contemporary Americans are the inheritors.
Corequisites: HIST 22602
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30013 American Political Parties (3 Credit Hours)
Political parties play many vital roles in American politics: They educate potential voters about political processes, policy issues, and civic duties. They mobilize citizens into political activity and involvement. They provide vital information about public debates. They control the choices--candidates and platforms that voters face at the ballot box. They influence and organize the activities of government officials. Most importantly, by providing a link between government and the governed, they are a central mechanism of representation. These roles--how well they are performed, what bias exists, how they shape outcomes, how they have changed over time--have consequences for the working of the American political system.
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30016 Catholics & US Public Life (3 Credit Hours)
This course offers an overview of the interaction between Catholics and public life in America during the half century following the Second Vatican Council and the election of a Catholic as President in 1960. The course should permit students to gain a greater familiarity with the engagement and response of various Catholic individuals and groups on some major political and social-cultural issues. It will explore the extent of Catholic influence in American politics and society during the period and will explore the role of religion in shaping (or not shaping) the outlooks of a number of significant Catholic political figures beginning with JFK, RFK, and Eugene McCarthy, moving to Mario Cuomo and Daniel Patrick Moynihan down to contemporary figures. The course offers each student the opportunity to research and write a major paper on a topic of his or her choosing in this area.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
CNST 30020 The United States in the Reagan Years (3 Credit Hours)
From his national television appearance in support of the doomed Goldwater presidential campaign in 1964 through his failed presidential runs in 1968 and 1976 and his presidency (1981-89) on to the official dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ronald Reagan played a significant role in, and in reaction to, major developments in American politics, foreign policy, and society. This class will consider the turbulence and protest movements of the 1960s; the conservative backlash; the individualism of the Me Decade and beyond; foreign policy issues including Vietnam, détente, the second Cold War, and the end of the Cold War; and national political disputes over issues like taxes, abortion, foreign policy and nuclear weapons.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
CNST 30022 The American Constitution (3 Credit Hours)
The Constitution holds a unique place in American law and political culture. Not only is it the basis of the federal government, it provides the framework for political debates about all manner of controversial issues in modern America. Today, there is much talk of a "constitutional crisis" in the United States. What does this mean? How can a history help us make sense of the Constitution and of our politics? This course explores the historical context in which the American Constitution was framed, ratified, and amended over time. Together, we will ask and answer the questions of how and why it was written the way it was; how and why it gained legitimacy; and how it was put into practice and interpreted over time. The class will introduce students to central historical problems, which include: Is the American Constitution democratic? Did the Constitution codify slavery into law? Is originalism a useful and valid way to interpret the Constitution? Course readings will consist primarily of primary source material, though students will also read historical interpretations of the Constitution and the process of forming, amending, and interpreting it. The discussion-based class will empower students to think historically about the American Constitution by interpreting primary source material, building arguments about causes and effects of particular constitutional points, and intervening in scholarly dialogues about the founding and its legacy. Students will be evaluated primarily based on class participation, a short primary source analysis, a role-play activity, and a final paper.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
CNST 30024 Women's Suffrage: Gender, Politics, and Power (3 Credit Hours)
In 2020, the United States is commemorating the centennial of the 19th Amendment, which prohibited the denial of voting rights on the basis of sex. In this course, we will take the occasion of the centennial to explore the place of women's suffrage in the development of American democracy and the political empowerment of women. We will examine such topics as the meaning of citizenship, the place of voting in the American democratic system, the woman suffrage movement and other feminist movements, the anti-suffrage movement and other conservative movements, and the participation of women in various political roles, including as candidates and office-holders. We will approach these topics with an explicitly intersectional lens, exploring the ways in which gender, race/ethnicity, and class, in particular, shape politics and power in the United States. Students in this course will also participate in a DPAC Learning Beyond the Classics film course (4-6 weeks) on women/s suffrage.
CNST 30025 Race/Ethnicity and American Politics (3 Credit Hours)
This course introduces students to the dynamics of the social and historical construction of race and ethnicity in American political life. The course explores the following core questions: What are race and ethnicity? What are the best ways to think about the impact of race and ethnicity on American citizens? What is the history of racial and ethnic formation in American political life? How do race and ethnicity link up with other identities animating political actions like gender and class? What role do American political institutions the Congress, presidency, judiciary, state and local governments, etc. play in constructing and maintaining these identity categories? Can these institutions ever be used to overcome the points of division in American society?
CNST 30026 Election 2020 (3 Credit Hours)
In this class, we will examine the 2020 presidential election - in real time - and then consider its effects on America's political future. Presidential elections provide the biggest and most important stage for the drama of American democracy. The 2020 version of this democratic drama promises to be one of the most intriguing and consequential in American history. For the first time, a presidential impeachment process has played out in an election year. Meanwhile, that same impeached president is seeking reelection, a Democratic field of unprecedented size and diversity is vying for that party's presidential nomination, and Americans continue to experience the political turmoil produced by the ever-increasing polarization of our two major parties. We will address all of this - from the "invisible primary" in 2018 and 2019, to the actual primaries and caucuses, the conventions, and the fall campaign and election. It does not matter whether you already know a lot or a little about presidential politics; if you want a front-row seat to the 2020 presidential election, this is the class for you.
CNST 30027 American Conservatism from the 1950s to the Present (3 Credit Hours)
Historians have argued that conservatism has been the dominant political ideology in the United States since the late 1960s. Yet, during this time, different actors have demonstrated diverse understandings of what it means to be conservative. Furthermore, at no point during our period of study was conservatism a monolithic force. We will look at some of the key events, persons, movements, and ideas that shaped conservatism in the postwar United States. We will also read excerpts of the rich historiography on the subject that has identified various social, cultural, and political factors as driving forces behind the rise of conservatism. By contrasting such explanations with the self-image of American conservatives conveyed through their writings, communication, and activism, we will get a critical understanding of the complexity of our subject. The course will focus on sourcework. We will learn to apply the historical method to diverse material and how to ask and answer historiographical questions using sources.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
CNST 30028 Presidents and Presidencies from FDR to Obama (3 Credit Hours)
This lecture and discussion course will examine the presidencies and presidential administrations from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama. The course will aim to provide an overview of the principle strengths and limitations of these administrations in both foreign affairs and domestic policy. The course should appeal to those who have particular interests in American political and diplomatic history.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
CNST 30030 Race and Constitutional Controversies (3 Credit Hours)
Over the course of the United States' near 250-year history, there have been many Supreme Court cases that have spoken to and impacted the fundamental bedrock of our nation. Many of these cases established legal precedent that would later take numerous decades in order to be altered or outright rejected by future Supreme Court justices. When examining many of these defining cases, we find that issues of race lie at their heart. The goal of this course is to examine this nation's historical views on race and ethnicity over time and their direct impact on major Supreme Court cases and the decisions of those justices sitting on the mightiest bench in the land. We will discuss cases ranging across history and topic, including Civil Rights (Dredd Scott v. Sanford, Brown v. Board of Education, Loving v. Virginia.), Equal Protection (Plessy v. Ferguson, Koromatsu v. U.S.) , and Affirmative Action (Gratz v. Bollinger, Fisher v. University of Texas), just to name a few. What will be seen throughout the course are the ways our nation's ideas and actions regarding race, on both governmental and societal levels, have fundamentally impacted the laws of the land and the citizens who inhabit it.
CNST 30031 The President and the Constitution (3 Credit Hours)
The course explores different theories of the president's role in the American constitutional system. Readings include The Federalist Papers, the writings Abraham Lincoln, works of modern scholars, and opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court. Grades will be based on midterm and final exams.
CNST 30032 Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil War (3 Credit Hours)
This course asks how we should narrate and understand the great ordeal of Civil War and emancipation. Reading both primary and secondary sources, it considers the Civil War era and life of Abraham Lincoln in light of the rise of abolition and antislavery politics; attitudes toward race, slavery, and labor; the political and social meanings of war and emancipation; the political and social challenge of reconstructing the nation amidst the tangled legacies of racial slavery and a destructive war.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
CNST 30033 The Kennedy Presidency, Its Aftermath, and the Rise of the Security State (3 Credit Hours)
Sixty years ago, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, in broad daylight, in the presence of hundreds of witnesses, while traveling in his presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. On that day, a historic presidency came to a tragic end. Two days later,
the alleged assassin (Lee Harvey Oswald) was murdered by a Dallas nightclub owner (Jack Ruby) while being escorted from his cell by a host of police officers, raising the possibility of a conspiracy. The official investigation into Kennedy's assassination ("The Warren Report") was met with fierce public skepticism, precipitating numerous Congressional investigations that revealed extensive covert operations (both in the US and abroad) conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that would have been relevant to those charged with investigating the assassination. When combined with an already heightened public skepticism of the assassination itself, these revelations proved to be an enduring catalyst for a slow and steady decline of public trust in government that continues unabated to our present day. In this course, we examine the origins and rise of the "security state" in the United States, its role in significant events in the Kennedy presidency, including the investigation into his assassination, and the extent of its power both before and after Kennedy's presidency. Ultimately, students will be asked whether and to what extent the demands of national security conflict with the constitutional prerogatives of a representative democracy.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WRIT - Writing Intensive
CNST 30034 The Constitution and Criminal Justice (3 Credit Hours)
In this course, we will cover extensive constitutional terrain involved in the area of criminal justice, from investigative steps through trial and sentencing. We will study significant issues in 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendment law while situating them within broader philosophical concerns about justice, Catholic Social Teaching, and questions of race and equity that emerge in various areas of criminal law enforcement and adjudication.
CNST 30035 The Ideas that Made America (3 Credit Hours)
America, at its core, is an idea. The lands that became America have been imagined and in certain ways and constantly reimagined. The history of the ideas that made America is less a lesson in philosophy and more about a series of clashes between contending visions: Democracy vs. Republicanism; Free vs. Slave; Christian vs. Secular; Individual vs. Society; and Universal vs. Particular. This course traces a long arc from the Puritans to the Culture Wars to understand the ideas Americans draw upon to comprehend the world and act in it. Lectures and discussions will consider the notions of equality, democracy, pluralism, religious freedom, and the tensions between contending visions for America. Readings for this course will include autobiographies, speeches, sermons, canonical texts, lyrics, novels, newspaper articles, and poetry.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
CNST 30036 Religion and Politics in America (3 Credit Hours)
“On my arrival in the United States,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America (1835), “the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention.” This course is an introduction to the history of religion in the United States from the pre-colonial period to the present, with special attention to its interplay with politics, law, and governance. Taking stock of the broad range of religious traditions that Americans have practiced, we will move chronologically through US history and explore rich primary sources like films, diaries, novels, art, sermons, and court records to help us make sense of religion’s evolving role in American politics and society. Along the way, we will delve into questions of religious pluralism and its challenges; conversion and religious experience; the legal history of the First Amendment’s religion clauses; civil religion; immigration; anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism; religion, slavery, and the civil rights movement; the shifting identities of religious “insiders” and “outsiders” in American life; the “culture wars”; and secularization, among other topics.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
CNST 30037 God and Slavery in the Americas (3 Credit Hours)
More than a century before African slaves were trafficked to the Virginia colony in 1619, Christopher Columbus transported captured Indigenous peoples to Spain from the New World. The dispossession and enslavement of non-Europeans in the colonization of the Americas was justified by Christians but also condemned by Christians with different economic and political interests. This development course in theology introduces students to the challenging intersection of faith, slavery, and freedom by exploring key figures, events, and movements that have shaped the complex historical legacy of Christianity in the Americas, a hemispheric past that remains ever bound together. In addition to Christianity's role in colonial expansion and racial ideology, the course especially considers how lived faith in God provided a catalyst for the empowerment and resistance of the oppressed and their advocates in shared struggles to attain greater social justice, racial equality, and political autonomy. From the "Protector of the Indians" Bartolomé de las Casas to César Chávez, and the "Black Moses" Harriet Tubman to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the course explores these and other extraordinary figures of hope in the Americas who gave their lives to protest institutional violence and promote authentic expressions of faith. In the course, students will engage this turbulent past through a contextual approach to theology that examines idolatry, migration, land, liberty, poverty, social sin, nonviolence, and solidarity as normative categories relevant for addressing contemporary social crises afflicting our nation and the earth.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKDT-Core Devlopment. Theology
CNST 30200 International Law (3 Credit Hours)
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to international law. In the beginning of the semester, we will focus on general characteristics of international law, such as its historical development, main thinkers, subjects, and sources of law. Second, we will study several substantive areas of international law, such as human rights, international criminal law, diplomacy, and peaceful resolution of disputes. Next, we will examine international courts, such as the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. We will conclude the course by analyzing international law through the lenses of domestic legal systems. Upon completion of this course, students should be familiar with the main features of international law and its historical development.
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30203 European Politics (3 Credit Hours)
In this course on European politics we will examine the literature on three major issues: regional integration, origins of modern political authority, and industrial political economy. We will seek to understand the origin, current functioning, and possible futures for key European institutions, including the EU, nation-states, social provision, unions, and political parties. Readings on the European Union, monetary politics, Germany, France, and Spain will be drawn from both scholarly sources and contemporary analyses of political events.
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30211 International Criminal Justice (3 Credit Hours)
This course critically examines the phenomena of international judicial intervention and ‘criminalization of world politics'; the actors, ideas, and rationales behind the international criminal justice project; the operation of international criminal justice in a world of power politics; its accomplishments, failures, and financial costs; and the future of international criminal justice. The course includes Skype conferences with a war crimes investigator, a war crimes analyst, a defense counsel, a victim representative, a State Department official, and a staff member of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court.
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30214 Roman Criminal Law (3 Credit Hours)
Perhaps our greatest inheritance from the ancient Romans is their law code and legal procedures. Students will study the development of Roman criminal law from the 12 Tables to the late antique period, including the emergence of jury courts and the persecution of Christians and heretics. By studying primary sources like Cicero's speeches and laws etched in bronze tablets, students will explore the seedy side of Roman life. Topics for discussion include murder, sorcery, bribery, forgery, treason, extortion and adultery. This course will not duplicate, but complement, Roman Law and Governance (CLAS 30210).
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30215 Catholicism and Politics (3 Credit Hours)
Catholicism and Politics poses the question, both simple and complex: How ought Catholics to think about the political order and political issues within it? The first part of the course will survey major responses to this question drawn from Church history: the early church, the medieval church, and the modern church. The second part applies these models to contemporary issues ranging among war, intervention, globalization, abortion, the death penalty, religious freedom, gender issues, and economic development. The course culminates in "Vatican III," where teams of students, representing church factions, gather to discover church teachings on selected controversial political issues.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKCD-Core Cathol & Disciplines
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30227 From Rasputin to Putin (3 Credit Hours)
This upper division lecture course examines some of the most important events, ideas, and personalities that shaped late Imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet periods of Russian history during the last one hundred years: from the outbreak of the First World War and the Revolutions of 1905 and 1917 through the Great Terror of the 1930s, the experience of the Second World War and the emergence of the Soviet Empire, late Stalinism and post-Stalinist developed or mature socialism, the collapse of the communist rule and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, as well as Russia's uneasy transition "out of Totalitarianism" and into Putin's authoritarianism during the first fourteen years of the twentieth-first century. The course is designed for history majors as well as for students in other disciplines with or without background in modern Russian and East European history.
Corequisites: HIST 22355
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30232 Election/Social Protest in Latin America (3 Credit Hours)
Elections and social protest are the two most important means of political participation in Latin America today. Every year, millions of Latin Americans go to the ballot box to elect their representatives, but millions also march to their country's capitals to oust elected politicians or simply to demand public goods or policy changes. Are Latin American citizens taking to the streets to contest market-oriented reforms, as it is often portrayed? Or do they take to the streets because elections don't work in Latin America's dysfunctional democracies? Are Latin American voters electing leftist politicians to move the economies away from neoliberal policies? Do the rich vote for the Right and the poor for the Left? In this course we want to understand who votes, who protests, and why they do it. We also want to understand the relationship between elections and protest. The course first provides a general overview of democratization, economic reforms, electoral behavior and social protest in Latin America. We then analyze electoral and social dynamics in six countries: Mexico, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and Guatemala. The in-depth analysis of these countries will provide you with a solid understanding of markets, democracies, voters and protesters in Latin America and will give you skills on how to assess public opinion surveys.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30233 Middle-East Politics (3 Credit Hours)
The Middle East is simultaneously one of the most strategically important regions in the world and one of the least understood. This course provides an introduction to the politics of the region from a thematic perspective. It addresses a variety of topics, including democracy, development, sectarianism, oil, and conflict. Students will be assigned readings from both historical scholarship and contemporary analysis of regional issues. When applicable, cases from across the region will be used to illustrate the themes of the course.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30238 French Revolution & Napoleon (3 Credit Hours)
The French Revolution created a turning point in history by paving the way for modern politics and society. Napoleon's empire, on the other hand, toppled some of the oldest European monarchies and shook up the international status quo. During two and a half turbulent decades, the French destroyed feudalism, created a constitutional monarchy, founded a republic, and built an empire that stretched across the continent. Our course will focus on how the French reinvented the social, cultural, and political dimensions of their world from the 1780s to 1815. We will ask major questions such as: What were the origins of the French Revolution? How did the revolutionaries recreate political culture and social structures? Why did the Revolution radicalize at first but eventually slide into an empire? Was Napoleon the "son of the Revolution" or did he betray its major goals?
Of special note, our course includes a 4-week "Reacting to the Past" game that allows you to engage in history from a completely new perspective. During this historical role-playing unit, you will become a specific member of the National Assembly or the Parisian crowd. To win, you must pass a constitution favorable to your position while wrestling "with the threat of foreign invasion, political and religious struggles, and questions of liberty and citizenship." Although we may change the course of history within the unit, you will root your arguments in resources available to your historical persona: primary documents, political treatises, inspiring speeches, secret collaborations, and "current" events.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30242 From Humors to Hysteria: Human and Political Bodies in European History, 1517-1918 (3 Credit Hours)
Between the early rumblings of the Reformations and the last cannon shot of World War I, Europeans profoundly changed how they conceptualized bodies as experience and metaphors. During these four centuries, Europeans grounded the ways in which they interacted with each other and the world in bodily imaginings. On an individual level, the living, human body provided a means of accessing and understanding the material or spiritual world. On a collective scale, the physical body, its adornments, and its gestures provided markers that Europeans used to fracture society along axes of gender, sexuality, class, race, mental aptitude, and even sacrality. Drawing in part from their myriad imaginings of the human body, Europeans constructed metaphorical political bodies. The body politic assumed diverse forms spanning from divine right monarchs to revolutionary republics to modern nation states. Our course will lay bare the human body as culturally constructed, while fleshing out how Europeans? evolving visions affected political imaginings.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30244 Varieties of Democracy (3 Credit Hours)
The world's largest collection of information about the state of democracy all over the world resides at the University of Notre Dame. This course is a guided exploration of the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) data. It begins with a survey of the varied ways that philosophers and cultures have thought about democracy. It then explains how these traditions were distilled into a lengthy questionnaire answered by more than a thousand country experts all over the world. The course provides you will the methodological tools you need to explore the data in depth to answer questions such as: What does it mean to be "democratic"? Are there different types of democracy in the world? What are the different ways of being undemocratic? Which countries and regions are most and least democratic in each way? What trends can we observe over the past century? Are there sequences of reforms that lead to successful democratization? As the database is still growing, many students will have the opportunity to contribute to the data collection process. You will also supplement the data with independent research to produce a detailed report evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the political regime in one country and placing it in comparative and historical perspective.
CNST 30245 International Law and Human Rights (3 Credit Hours)
What role does international law have in the advancement of human rights, and how does human rights, in turn, advance international law? This course introduces university students to the general system of modern international law (e.g. its norm-generating framework involving States and non-State actors; the roles of many State and non-State authoritative decision-makers in shaping expectations of peaceful, just, and responsible behavior in the international system; its varied constellation of dispute settlement courts and tribunals, alongside the prospects and limits of enforcing State compliance with international decisions), specifically viewed from the lens of historic global, regional, and domestic challenges to human dignity that influenced the first global codification of human rights norms under the United Nations' 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, up to the present development of the current international system of protection for human rights. The course situates the framework of modern international law and civil, political, economic, social, and cultural human rights, using five examples of the historic, defining, and 'constitutionalizing moments' for the international system: 1) the international abolition of slavery; 2) the evolution from classical to modern international law in dismantling colonial empires to enshrine the self-determination of all peoples and the equality of sovereignty of all nations; 3) the outlawing of the aggressive use of force since 1929, towards the peaceful settlement of maritime and territorial disputes and the humanitarian rules applicable to armed conflict situations; 4) the establishment of international accountability of individuals and States for genocide, crimes against humanity and other human rights atrocities; and 5) the global regulation for sustainable use, shared protection, and intergenerational responsibility over natural resources (land, oceans, atmosphere, outer space).
CNST 30246 Faith Freedom & Fanaticism (3 Credit Hours)
In this course we will explore the different ways that religious institutions and ideas affect political attitudes and behaviors in various parts of the world. With a special focus on Christianity and Islam, the course will address the following questions: Why do many citizens in some countries expect religious leaders to play a prominent role in politics while many citizens in other countries do not? Why are some religious institutions more supportive of freedom of religion than others and what explains religious persecution across the world? What effect do religious institutions have on support for liberal democracy? How does globalization affect the way religion is applied to public life? How can we tell when violence is motivated by religion and what explains religiously motivated or justified violence?
CNST 30247 Post-Conflict Politics (3 Credit Hours)
The first part of course examines the legacies of protracted conflicts (mostly civil wars) on a variety of political outcomes, from state-building and democratic institutions to political participation and social movements. The second part of the course explores different mechanisms by which states and the international community have dealt with these legacies, such as international courts, transitional justice and institution-building programs.
CNST 30248 African Politics (3 Credit Hours)
Course would provide an overview to all major themes in political science focusing on the African continent. The course will cover the entire continent, though likely focus on five cases studies that parallel substantive themes. The course would first provide a grounding in colonization, decolonization and state development, but then focus primarily on contemporary political behavior and institutions. I am interested in using Bleck & Van de Walle as a primary text.
CNST 30249 US State Government & Politics (3 Credit Hours)
Although US state-level governments have been described as "laboratories of democracy" where a significant amount of policy making takes place, many of us who study political science often familiarize ourselves only with government at the federal and international levels. This is concerning because, not only do our state governments create many of the policies we experience in everyday life, but also because the federal government will often look to state policies for direction. The importance of state governments is especially evident in the case of COVID-19, as states decide for themselves how to prevent the spread of the virus and administer the vaccine, resulting in a hodgepodge of regulations across the country. State government wields a lot of power over our lives, and it is important for us to understand not only what our state-level representatives are doing, but also the law making powers they hold. This course examines state governments in the US by studying state-level officeholders, such as state legislators, and state-level institutions, including campaigns and elections. Students will learn about the powers which are reserved to the states, unique differences between state governments, and the mechanisms and consequences of lawmaking at the state-level.
CNST 30250 Democracy, Violence & Elections (3 Credit Hours)
Elections are often promoted as a non-violent means of leadership succession. However, violent elections have become a common phenomenon, both in conflict countries and advanced democracies. The recent round of intimidation and unrest in the US is one instance of electoral violence. Governors in both Michigan and Virginia were targeted in a kidnapping plot, and deaths were incurred in the US Capitol assault. In conflict countries, peace builders advocate the use of elections to resolve conflict and lay the ground for democratization. Yet, unfree and/or unfair elections have led to violence, like in the US, or worse, re-ignited civil wars. Putting together the complex relationship among violence, elections, and democracy, this course introduces students to the politics surrounding elections. Throughout this course, we will examine the causes of pre- and post-election violence and the consequences of low quality elections on peace and conflict. We will also draw on examples from different parts of the world to critically examine important concepts and theories, and we will study measures of election quality to understand how they can be used to evaluate elections as well as their measurement issues, which have implications on our understanding of democracy.
CNST 30251 American Evangelicals and Global Affairs (3 Credit Hours)
Since the end of the Cold War, American Evangelicals' political influence has increased significantly. For example, Christian Zionist have continued to contribute meaningfully to American political support for the state of Israel. Additionally, to improve human dignity, Evangelicals have established schools and promoted literacy, built clinics and dispensaries, promoted agricultural development and distributed food aid, created orphanages, and propagated values about the inherent worth of all persons. Twenty-five to thirty percent of the US population is neo-evangelical and another five to ten percent adheres to some form of evangelical theology. That means that 100 million Americans are in one way or another tied to evangelical theology and they seem to pray, think, vote, and lobby as a coalition.
This course will examine the rise of American Evangelicalism and explore matters deemed important to Evangelicals: social and political affairs, global engagement, participation in public affairs, international affairs, support of Israel, political and economic development. More generally, this course offers a compelling account of Evangelicals' influence on America's role in the world. Students will learn how to engage more thoughtfully and productively with this influential religious group - a group that has been called political kingmakers! Students will also learn about the largest protestant denomination in the world - Southern Baptists - from the professor, who was a former Southern Baptist Minister and church planter.
CNST 30252 Native American Politics and Philosophy (3 Credit Hours)
From the protests at Standing Rock, the renaming of various sports teams, and a Supreme Court decision regarding much of eastern Oklahoma, the political concerns of Native Americans have come to the fore in recent years. How is the relationship between Native North Americans and the United States (and Canada)? In this class, we will try to understand the Native American worldviews that lie behind these political conflicts by reading a variety of Indigenous North American writers. We will discuss the role of nature, spirituality, authority, and political community in Native American traditions. We will also examine how philosophic disagreements between Native American philosophy and Western philosophies can produce political conflict. Students will leave this class with a strong grasp of Native American philosophy and political concerns, as well as a good framework of Western political philosophy.
CNST 30253 Classical Islamic Political Thoughts (3 Credit Hours)
This course examines the development of political thought in classical Islam (7th-14th centuries). The course runs in two parallel tracks. The first track introduces students to Islamic history and culture. Here, students will present themes that will set the background for the second track. Each class starts with student presentations on the major dynasties that ruled different parts of the Muslim world at different times with an emphasis on politically contested issues and culturally relevant debates. The second track considers the different schools of political thought: the philosophical, the juristic, and the humanist. Here, the emphasis is on textual analysis. In the second part of each class, we turn to the works of Al- Farabi, Al-Mawardi, and Ibn Khaldun and we study them within the context set by student presentations. Throughout, we consider how their work dealt with issues of political stability and conflict and we examine, within a comparative framework, their relevance for today's concerns.
CNST 30254 Europe in the Age of Revolution and Nationalism, 1789-1871 (3 Credit Hours)
Europe made a violent and dramatic entry into the modern age in the tumultuous decades from 1789 to 1871. The period opens with the French Revolution and closes with the unification of Germany and Italy. In between lie the revolutionary Reign of Terror in France, the Napoleonic Wars, the independence wars of Latin America, the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, the Industrial Revolution, and the invention of liberalism, conservatism, socialism, feminism, nationalism, democracy, atheism, and modern science. Europeans in 1789 still lived in a world that in many ways was similar to the 16th and 17th century; by 1871, the outlines of Europe in the 20th century were beginning to form. How this profound transformation occurred will be the subject of the course.
3.000 Credit hours
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
CNST 30255 The Quest for Constitutional Order in the Middle East (3 Credit Hours)
The Arab Spring represented a moment of challenge to intransigent repressive structures and aspiration to new democratic constitutional orders. To understand this moment we need to appreciate the complex history of the region. This is a survey course that approaches the intellectual history of Islam from a very specific angle: its encounter with Western political and intellectual thought. We will be looking at the first encounter with Greek political philosophy during the formative period of Arab-Islamic thought, in addition to Early and Late Modern responses to the European military and cultural challenge. The historical/comparative structure of the course makes salient the continuities and discontinuities in the thematic treatment of subjects like reform, representation, forms of government, the role of the community, and the rule of law. Some of the case studies that we will consider include Ottoman administrative and constitutional reforms, Arab nationalism, Lebanese consociationalism, and the Iranian Revolution and its constitutional project.
CNST 30402 Education Law and Policy (3 Credit Hours)
This course focuses on selected legal and policy issues related to K-12 education in the United States. A central theme is the intersection of K-12 schooling and the state, with a particular focus on Constitutional issues of religious freedom and establishment, student speech and privacy, parental choice, educational opportunity, and education reform trends such as charter schools and accountability measures.
Questions examined over the course of the semester include:
What are the most basic obligations of the state with regard to its regulation of K-12 education? What are the most basic rights of parents in this regard?
In what ways does the 1st Amendment protect - and limit - the speech and privacy rights of K-12 schoolchildren?
In what ways may the state accommodate K-12 schools with an explicitly religious character? What are the Constitutional requirements with regard to religious speech or expression within K-12 public schools?
To what degree is the principle of equality manifest in the form of educational opportunity? How has this changed over time?
In what ways have education reform trends such as charter schooling and increased accountability changed the policy landscape of K-12 education?
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30403 Church, the State, and American Constitutionalism (3 Credit Hours)
Class examines philosophical, constitutional, and political questions pertaining to religion and politics, including: Do individuals have a right to religious liberty? If so, how might that right be protected? How does the American Constitution protect the right to religious freedom? What is the proper relationship between church and state? Is religion necessary, good, or bad for liberal democracy? Readings include selections from classical, medieval, and modern political philosophy, leading cases of American constitutional law, and contemporary legal theorist and political scientists.
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30405 Early Childhood Ed Policy (3 Credit Hours)
"This course covers the various issues relevant to the current early childhood education landscape. This includes theories of early learning and child development, policy development in the United States, the issues of inequality and the achievement gap (particularly related to K-12 Education Reform) and research on interventions or "what works" in early childhood programming. The advantage to understanding the theories of child development, the policy context and the intervention research is that it gives future teachers and future policymakers a foundational premise upon which to grow, analyze, learn and teach. Topics covered will include: Theories of Child Development (Infant Schools to Present), Head Start and the CCDBG, State Preschool, Inequality and the Achievement Gap in the Early Years and Interventions in Early Childhood (HighScope/Perry Preschool, Abecedarian and Chicago Parent Studies, Head Start Research).
The goal of this class is to come away with a greater understanding of the language, the history, the goals and the possibilities in this policy area as well as its connections to other social welfare programs and to K-12 schooling. Students will become more fluent in the language of early childhood education and will gain the foundational knowledge of past and current theories, laws, policies and educational interventions."
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSS - Core Social Science, WRIT - Writing Intensive
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30406 Gay Rights and the Constitution (3 Credit Hours)
This course will review decisions of the U.S. Supreme court regarding the constitutional rights of homosexuals. It will assess the Court's decisions in light of (1) background theories of constitutional interpretation; (2) the principles of the American Founding; and (3) present day moral arguments for and against gay rights. Readings will consist of Supreme Court cases, selections from the Ratification debate and the philosophic writings that influenced the Founding, and the writings of present-day moral philosophers on both sides of the issues. Grades will be based on mid-term and final exams, with an optional term paper for one quarter of the course grade.
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30407 Constitutional Law: Powers and Institutions (3 Credit Hours)
This course will examine constitutional law and interpretation in the United States, focusing on the division of powers and the authority of key institutions under the Constitution. We will consider the Court's interpretation of the scope of power granted to Congress, the executive branch, and the federal judiciary, in addition to the powers reserved to the states. We will examine the ways in which constitutional interpretation of powers and authority has changed over time and gain an understanding of where the Court stands on these issues today. In each section we will discuss pivotal moments in interpretation, such as congressional power after the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, the expansion of the commerce power during the New Deal, and the resurgence of state powers during the Rehnquist Court's federalism revolution. We will also deal with cases currently before the Court, including those that involve the Affordable Care Act, and cases that will likely come before the Court, such as challenges to President Obama's executive changes to immigration policy. This approach will help students to consider how political factors and the changing membership of the Court affect constitutional interpretation.
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30411 US Foreign Policy in the Cold War (3 Credit Hours)
This course covers the main developments in American foreign policy from World War II through the end of the Cold War. The principal topics of investigation will be wartime diplomacy and the origins of the Cold War; the Cold War and containment in Europe and Asia; Eisenhower/Dulles diplomacy; Kennedy-Johnson and Vietnam; Nixon-Kissinger and détente; Carter and the diplomacy of Human Rights; Reagan and the revival of containment; Bush and the end of the Cold War.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30414 History of American Capitalism (3 Credit Hours)
This course offers a broad thematic overview of the history of capitalism from the early sixteenth century up to the late 1980s. As a discussion-based seminar, we will devote most of our conversations to discovering, analyzing and reflecting on the transformation of the U.S. from a newly-independent British colony, to the most influential economic power in the world. Topics and themes we will consider include: the rise of early modern transnational capitalism, European imperialism and trade, and indigenous dispossession after 1492; science and technological transformations; social and economic thought; slavery and servitude, broadly construed; and characteristics of prosperity, wealth, and economic flux.
Our readings and viewings will be a mix of scholarly and primary sources, including an abundance of canonical literary and artistic material, such as novels, visual art, and film excerpts (e.g. Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House (1879), Aaron Douglas's Building More Stately Mansions (1944), and Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence (1920)). Over the course of the semester, students will draw upon this eclectic combination of sources to synthesize the dominant historical dimensions of capitalism in and beyond the U.S. via four short essays (4 - 5 pages, double-spaced-between 1,100 and 1,400 words), and a final paper (10 - 12 pages, double-spaced) based on cumulative texts.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30417 Sexual Morality and the Constitution (3 Credit Hours)
The "sexual revolution" began in the Western democracies sometime between the 1920s and the 1970s. This revolution saw great changes regarding the social acceptability of fornication, divorce, contraception, pornography, abortion, homosexual sex, and gay marriage. Free-market capitalism has been a major factor in this development due to its inventions, like electronic entertainment and the pill, destruction of the family as a self-sustaining economic unit (drawing men and women out of the family farm and the home shop and into the factories and offices of urban centers), and its tendency to enhance economic growth by promoting self-indulgence and weakening moral, religious, and aesthetic restraints on consumption and production. American courts played a significant role in this development by modifying constitutional provisions originally used to protect property rights and pursue equal protection for racial minorities. Popular resentment of religious imposition via the criminal law has also been a factor since opposition to sexual liberation has come mainly from religious communities. This course surveys the mutual influence of American constitutional law and the sexual revolution in America.
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30419 Free Speech (3 Credit Hours)
This course examines the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and its interpretation in American constitutional law. Students will participate in Socratic method discussions, class debates, and moot court exercises, in which students play the role of lawyers and justices arguing a Supreme Court case. Through these activities, students will explore the freedom of speech as it relates to sedition, libel, invasion of privacy, obscenity, commercial speech, broadcasting, and the internet.
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30420 Cybercrime and the Law (3 Credit Hours)
Almost all crimes, or even human interactions, contain a digital component. The fact that "old" laws don't always fit "new" problems is no more apparent than in the area of cybercrimes. This course will include discussion of topics including: the methodology of typical cyber investigations, the application of the Fourth Amendment to digital evidence, and different types of cyber-specific laws enforced today. The course will also focus on the responses of both courts and legislators to the ever-evolving issues presented by computer crimes.
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30423 Philanthropy & the Common Good (3 Credit Hours)
This course will explore the roots of philanthropy in American society, the role philanthropy plays within the modern economy, and how philanthropic activity helps us create a better world and strive for the common good. The key component of the course requires students to act as a Board of Directors and use thoughtful analysis to award real grants to deserving nonprofits (a sum up to $50,000). Students are expected to come to each class prepared to discuss course readings, and to offer ideas and suggestions regarding the grant making process. Each student is also expected to complete two site visits to nonprofit organizations outside of normal class hours. Students will nominate nonprofits for awards and the class will systematically discuss, analyze, and ultimately vote to award the grants. Students interested in this course who are unable to register through their major/minor should contact the instructor for permission to register.
CNST 30425 Civil Rights in America (3 Credit Hours)
This course explores the Black Freedom Struggle from the Civil Rights Movement to Black Power and into Black Lives Matter. How have African Americans mobilized to secure recognition of human dignity from the American Political system? How did the Freedom Struggle shape American culture? By studying the Civil Rights Movement in America, this class opens up conversation on the central issues of American history: race, racism, rights, and freedom.
CNST 30427 The Politics of Compliance with International Law (3 Credit Hours)
Under what conditions do governments comply with international norms? How can international courts secure respect for their orders? Because international courts lack effective means of enforcement, governments often defy their rulings. We will analyze why governments adhere to court orders and how international bodies can become more effective. We will also introduce advanced methodological tools to analyze and predict compliance. Students in the seminar will have the opportunity to participate in research projects integrated to the Notre Dame Reparations Design and Compliance Lab (NDRL). Participants will be able to use the tools acquired in the course to analyze compliance with the rulings of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the World Bank Inspection Panel, and other international bodies.
CNST 30428 Crime, Heredity and Insanity in American History (3 Credit Hours)
This course gives students the opportunity to learn more about how Americans have thought about criminal responsibility and how their ideas have changed over time. Historians contend that the 19th century witnessed a transformation in the understanding of the origins of criminal behavior in the United States. The earlier religious emphasis on the sinfulness of all mankind, which made the murderer into merely another sinner, gave way to a belief in the inherent goodness of humankind. But if humans were naturally good, how are we to explain their evil actions? And crime rates varied widely by sex and race; European women were said to have been domesticated out of crime doing. What do those variations tell us about a common human nature? The criminal might be a flawed specimen of humankind born lacking a healthy and sane mind. Relying in part upon studies done in Europe, American doctors, preachers, and lawyers debated whether insanity explained criminality over the century and how it expressed itself in different races and sexes. Alternative theories were offered. Environment, heredity, and free will were all said to have determined the actions of the criminal. By the early 20th century, lawyers and doctors had largely succeeded in medicalizing criminality. Psychiatrists now treated criminals as patients; judges invoked hereditary eugenics in sentencing criminals. Science, not sin, had apparently become the preferred mode of explanation for the origins of crime. But was this a better explanation than what had come before? Can it explain the turbulent debates in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries over variations in crime rates by race? Can it explain why men, not women, are still more likely to commit murder?
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
CNST 30429 America's Culture Wars (3 Credit Hours)
Why are Americans so divided today? What explains the fracture? Why do Americans seem to live in different worlds? Why do we see reality in such divergent ways? This course suggests we can find answers to these pressing questions in the so-called Culture Wars of the late twentieth century. In the wake of the social movements of the 1960s, Americans attempted to push culture in very different directions. Some wanted to continue a cultural revolution, whereas others sought to check the brakes on this project. As a result of the push and pull, a range of intense disputes took place in political, legal, and cultural realms. This course considers a wide range of cultural flashpoints: the rise of the religious right, the advent of queer theory, the growth of radical feminism, and the birth of critical race theory. It looks at debates over censorship and art, public mores and sexuality, gender and race, academic curriculum and decolonization. We study some of the period’s most provocative films, pieces of art, music videos, and public demonstrations. It studies events such as the AIDS crisis, the Rodney King Riots, Bill Clinton’s impeachment, and the Anita Hill hearings. It attempts to bring together a wide range of voices – conservative, liberal, secular, religious, radical, and mainstream. In the end, we will speculate if the Culture War is still raging, and how we as Americans might find commonalities in our differences, in the name of reviving our own democratic traditions.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
CNST 30430 Labor in America since 1945 (3 Credit Hours)
This course explores the relationships among and between workers, employers, government policymakers, unions, and social movements since the end of World War II, as well as the ways in which those relationships have shaped and been shaped by American politics and culture more broadly. The United States emerged from the Second World War as the globe's unequaled economic and political power, and its citizens parlayed that preeminence into a long postwar economic boom that created, however imperfectly, the first truly mass middle-class society in world history. At the heart of that new society was the American labor movement, whose leaders and members ensured that at least some of the heady postwar profits made it into the wallets of workers and their families - and not just the wallets of union members, as working Americans generally experienced great improvement in wages, benefits, and economic opportunity during the quarter-century ending in 1970. During those same years, civil rights activists challenged the historic workplace discrimination that kept African Americans at the bottom of the labor market, confronting the racism of employers, unions, and the government, and inspiring others, primarily Mexican Americans and women, to broaden the push for equality at the workplace. Since that time, however, Americans have experienced a transformation in the workplace -- an erosion of manufacturing and the massive growth of service and government work; a rapid decline in number of union members and power of organized labor; and unresolved conflicts over affirmative action to redress centuries of racial and gender discrimination. Meanwhile, income inequality and wealth disparities have grown every year over the past three decades. What accounts for the decline of organized labor since 1970, and why have the people of the mythic land of milk and honey experienced declining upward mobility and widening gaps between the rich and everyone else? Are these phenomena linked? What has the decline of the labor movement meant for workers specifically, and the American economy and politics more broadly? How and why have popular perceptions of unions changed over time? What has been the relationship of organized labor to the civil rights movement, feminism, modern conservatism, and the fortunes of individual freedom more broadly? What is globalization, and what has been its impact upon American workers? Through an exploration of historical scholarship, memoirs, polemical writings, and films, this course will try to answer these questions and many others. It will also address the prospects for working people and labor unions in the twenty-first century.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
CNST 30431 Media & Politics (3 Credit Hours)
Although the mass media is not formally part of the U.S. government, it is arguably the most powerful institution shaping public attitudes, creating and producing information, and communicating political information to individual citizens. Almost all exposure to politics comes not from direct experience but from mediated stories. And, with the rise of the Internet, the growth of 24-hour cable news, and the decline of the "Big Three" television networks has created, a more diffuse media environment has been created. The primary purpose of this course is to analyze the role of the media in American politics and its relationship with the public, government, and candidates for office in a democratic society.
CNST 30432 Law, Bioethics, and the Human Person (3 Credit Hours)
Law, Bioethics, and the Human Person is a discussion-based course focused on "public bioethics," defined as the governance of science, medicine, biotechnology, and the practice of medicine in the name of ethical goods. Issues covered may include the ethical, legal (including constitutional), and social dimensions of abortion, assisted reproduction, end of life decision-making, assisted suicide, research involving human subjects, commodification of the human body and its parts, advances in cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging, human embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, organ donation, the definition of death, and research involving animal-human chimeras and hybrids.
CNST 30433 Schooling, Self, and Society (3 Credit Hours)
Liberal education is one of the greatest cultural achievements of the long Western tradition. But what's the point? And what exactly do we mean by liberal education? Is it education for free people or education to make people free? A people, a group, or just the individual? Privilege or liberation? We will ask why you are pursuing a liberal education. And study where it came from, how it has developed, what are its practices, and what are its justifications. We shall divide our focus between the theory and practice of education. Theorists will include Plato and other ancient, medieval, and early modern thinkers, but we shall devote considerable time to American experiments with liberal education (proponents, critics, opponents). Here we shall read selections from Booker T. Washington, John Dewey, Mortimer Adler, but also the Brazilian Paulo Freire, bell hooks, and contemporary self-described culture warriors. On the practice side: we will consider the materials and conditions of education at various places and times. We shall also practice ourselves some of the ancient and early modern techniques (of writing, reading, memorizing, and performing).
CNST 30434 Urban Politics (3 Credit Hours)
This course introduces students to major actors, institutions, processes, and policies of substate governments in the United States. Through an intensive comparative examination of historical and contemporary politics in city governments, we will gain an understanding of municipal government and its role within the larger contexts of state and national government. Among the issues we will examine are representation, race and ethnicity, neighborhood development, and governing the multicultural metropolis.
CNST 30435 The Law of American Democracy (3 Credit Hours)
This course will examine ways that law structures, promotes, and governs the practice of democracy in America. Topics include key features of the American constitution, including federalism, bicameralism, the separation of powers, and judicial review; the First Amendment and the freedoms of speech and press; voting rights, elections, parties, and campaigns; and the changes caused and challenges posted by technological and other developments.
This course will be taught by a member of the Notre Dame Law School faculty. It is designed and intended for undergraduates, without legal training, but it will be taught in a manner typical for law schools and will involve engagement with, and close reading of, legal texts.
CNST 30436 Economic Sins (3 Credit Hours)
This course is a discussion-based seminar investigating a series of “economic sins.” That is, we will explore differing perspectives on a series of controversies in economics and business, such as just or fair wages, collective action problems, exploitation, asymmetry in knowledge and leverage, inequality, sweatshops, sustainability, and cronyism. How does business in a market economy give rise to such problems? How does it, or can it, address them? What is the proper role of government with respect to such issues? Readings will draw from classical and contemporary sources in economics, philosophy, theology, political science, and business ethics, and will represent a range of perspectives. This course is part of the Business and the Common Good minor.
CNST 30437 Business & Politics in America (3 Credit Hours)
In this course, we examine the sometimes productive, sometime corrosive, relationship between business and politics in America. To do so, we will focus on the ways in which the relationship between business and politics in America has facilitated the rise of extractive forms of exchange and rent-seeking practices at the expense of genuine value creation brought about by voluntary cooperation in productive activities. Throughout the course, then, we will pay close attention to debates—philosophical, theological, political—about the determinants of value in a market economy, including the relative voluntariness of its participants, the definition of “rents” as a kind of unproductive, and so extractive, form of economic activity, and the continuing appeal—for political and business leaders alike—of exercising managerial control over the masses, i.e., their fellow citizens. To illustrate the significance of these debates, and the social implications of the answers provided by their participants, we will investigate how America’s political class has been utilized as an instrument of extraction and rent-seeking by market actors throughout our nation’s history, covering the post-war Gilded Age, the Depression and New Deal, the deindustrialization and deunionization of the American economy in the 1970s, and the globalization of trade in the 1990s. Ultimately, students will be asked to reflect on the moral significance of the ends for which political and economic power has been deployed in an era marked by the rise of big business, the emergence of mass politics, and the expansion of public power to control its citizens.
CNST 30438 Election 2024 (3 Credit Hours)
In this class, we will examine the 2024 presidential election—in real time—and then consider its effects on America's political future. Presidential elections provide the biggest and most important stage for the drama of American democracy, and in 2024 the future of our democracy will be on the ballot. For the first time since 1956, we will have the same two major-party presidential candidates who ran in the last election. However, unlike 1956, which was a rather amicable contest between two political centrists, the 2024 presidential election comes on the heels of one of the two candidates participating in a concerted effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election and each political party depicting the other as a fundamental threat to American values. We will address all of this, from the "invisible primary" in 2022 and 2023, to the actual primaries and caucuses, the conventions, and the fall campaign and election. It does not matter whether you already know a lot or a little about presidential politics; if you want a front-row seat to the 2024 presidential election, this is the class for you.
CNST 30439 Surviving the Digital Apocalypse (3 Credit Hours)
The end is nigh! Who will save us from Apple or the AI replicants or the alien invasion? If you take this class, it might just be you. Do you think you have what it takes to confront the digital leviathan with its insatiable hunger for human data? If so, you will need cutting edge survival skills and friends you can trust. This course offers both in the form of radical ideas, acts of digital rebellion and real offline friendships that cannot be reduced to a group text. It also helps to know that we’ve been here before. With each new advance in human communication technology, the cultural DNA mutates and spawns new forms of art, literature, beliefs, institutions and practices. Understanding this process is the key to surviving the upheaval. In this course, we are not optimistic or pessimistic about technology, only apocalyptic. What is being revealed and what will be required to preserve our humanity?
CNST 30440 Overcriminalization of America (1 Credit Hour)
The average American, according to one legal scholar, commits three felonies a day. In this 1-credit course, we will discuss how America’s federal criminal law has become so expansive, what dangers may arise from this expansion, and what can be done about it. During this two-week course, we will study the development of the federal criminal code and the cases underlying it. Beginning with the American Founding, we will consider the purpose of criminal law and whether America’s criminal laws and regulations have strayed from this purpose. The course will be taught by the Honorable Amul Thapar, judge on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
CNST 30441 United States Foreign Policy (3 Credit Hours)
The United States is the most powerful state in the world today. Its actions are important not just for US citizens, but they also affect whether others go to war, whether they will win their wars, whether they receive economic aid, whether they will go broke, or whether they will starve. What determines US foreign policy? What is the national interest? When do we go to war? Would you send US soldiers into war? If so, into which wars and for what reasons? How do our economic policies affect others? Does trade help or hurt the US economy and its citizens? We first study several theories about foreign policy. We then examine the US foreign policy process, including the President, Congress, the bureaucracy, the media, and public opinion. To see how this all works, we turn to the history of US foreign policy, from Washington's farewell address through the World Wars and the Cold War to the Gulf War. We then study several major issue areas, including weapons of mass destruction, trade and economics, and the environment. Finally, we develop and debate forecasts and strategies for the future.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSS - Core Social Science
CNST 30442 Religion, Education, and Democracy (3 Credit Hours)
This is a course in the philosophy of education. The goal of the course is to produce a philosophy of education that engenders in the current generation of students (i.e., you) responsibility for what has been called the “American proposition.” The notion of “America” is distinct from the United States of America, but is often conflated with and conveyed by the latter. It sits at the intersection of religion, education, and democracy, an intersection at which the atrophy of each is seen by many to be caused by the values of the other. With the discipline of education as its platform and Catholicism, among other voices, as a particular conversation partner, the course examines historical, contemporaneous, and ecclesial resources, including notions of the common good, humanism, and ecological thinking, to ask, among other questions: Are religion, education, and democracy commensurable or incommensurable in such ways as to facilitate social coherence in the 21st century? If not, what accounts for decades, if not centuries, of robust educational systems designed to bolster democratic and religious institutions alike? Assuming a Catholic philosophy of education as a normative reference point (as is required for the Catholicism & the Disciplines ways of knowing attribute), we will examine what relationship religion does, can, and should have with education if the latter is fundamental to democracy while democracy itself serves as the guarantor of the former, particularly in terms of religious liberty.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKCD-Core Cathol & Disciplines
CNST 30443 Urban Ethics (3 Credit Hours)
What are cities, and how do they work? How do present (and how will future) societies respond to the challenges of pollution, sustainable development, exploitation of natural resources, equal access to infrastructure, education and welfare, human rights, food production and distribution, and energy consumption? This course welcomes students to reflect on these questions and respond to these challenges through the emerging field of urban ethics. Through lectures and readings, we will ask: 1) Can we define an “ancient urban ethics?" 2) Which disciplines are involved in urban ethics, and what strategies—from environmental to social ethics—should inform it? 3) What policies, planning documents, and environmental and information technologies from the past and present can we avail from around the world to understand urban ethics? To ground our discussions, we will read excerpts from classical literature, philosophy, and cross-disciplinary works. We will also engage resources including maps, drawings, art, photographs, and videos. As we will discover through discussion and participation, urban ethics is a field in which everyone is involved.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSP - Core 2nd Philosophy
CNST 30444 Law & Economics (3 Credit Hours)
This class teaches how to use the basic tools and concepts of economics to analyze the economic effects of legal rules, regulations, and enforcement methods. Examples of this "economic approach" to the study of the law are taken from the basic bodies of law in a civil society: property law, tort law, contract law, and criminal law. The course also explores the role of the state in creating and enforcing a body of law that promotes economic growth and development.
CNST 30445 Taxation in a Global Economy (3 Credit Hours)
In this course students will explore the different corporate structures firms adopt to operate in multiple countries. A key focus will be on understanding the economic and institutional factors that influence where multinational firms locate their production, sales, and management activities. Central to these decisions are the tax policies adopted by individual countries and the role of tax havens. Students will also study how tax policies affect the general economic environment in which firms operate by affecting wages, firm investment, and firm value.
CNST 30446 Jurisprudence and the US Constitution (3 Credit Hours)
This is a course in the nature of law generally and of the task of judging (often referred to as "jurisprudence") in particular. This course will study the major conceptual schools of thought that have shaped American jurisprudence, including legal positivism, natural law jurisprudence, originalism, textualism, and pragmatism. We will also examine more general philosophical frameworks beyond the American context, including the legal thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and the British philosopher of law H.L.A. Hart.
CNST 30447 The American Presidency (3 Credit Hours)
This course provides a political science perspective on the American presidency, covering the design elements of the office, fundamental features of presidential elections, the power of the presidency, and more.
CNST 30448 Comparative Courts and the Rule of Law (3 Credit Hours)
The death of a Supreme Court Justice triggers a bitter partisan battle over the impending nomination. Is this tragedy unique to the United States? Why are political parties so eager to control the Court? This course will explore how constitutional norms seek to protect judicial independence, and how political parties "game" such constitutional norms worldwide. We will analyze episodes of "packing" and "purging" of supreme courts and constitutional tribunals in different countries. We will investigate the practice of "strategic retirement" in the US Supreme Court, the threat posed by legislative majorities to judicial independence, and the slippery slope of partisan manipulation. We will also address whether judicial purges constitute opportunities for a more balanced judiciary (for instance, in terms of gender). Comparative analysis will help us learn from the experience of other nations. This course will introduce students to basic notions of game theory and quantitative analysis.
CNST 30449 Witnessing the Sixties (3 Credit Hours)
The purpose of this interdisciplinary course is twofold: to examine the social context and cultural change of the sixties and to explore the various journalistic and aesthetic representations of events, movements, and transformations. We will focus on the manner in which each writer or artist witnessed the sixties and explore fresh styles of writing and cultural expression, such as the new journalism popularized by Tom Wolfe and the music/lyrics performed by Bob Dylan. Major topics for consideration include the counterculture and the movement--a combination of civil rights and anti-war protests.
CNST 30450 Early America Today (3 Credit Hours)
Whether it is controversies about the removal of statues, bans on teaching the New York Times’s The 1619 Project, critiques of the musical Hamilton, or originalist interpretations of the United States Constitution, early America seems to have gained new prominence in debates about the present-day United States. But why does this period—which spans four centuries from approximately 1450 to 1850—hold such meaning today? And what does this history have to teach us about our present moment? In this class, we will learn about the vast, diverse, and complex world of early America and use this knowledge to better understand current issues and events. Like Americans today, early Americans dealt with pandemics, racial injustice, political corruption, and income inequality. They adapted to changing markets, globalization, and climate change. What do their experiences have to teach us about navigating these issues in our own time.
CNST 30451 LGBTQ American History (3 Credit Hours)
How have LGBTQ people shaped modern America? And how has modern America shaped LGBTQ lives and experiences? In the popular imagination, the Stonewall Riots often mark the beginning of the modern gay rights movement and a turning point in the visibility and cultural acceptance of LGBTQ people. In this course, we will think about the longer and wider histories of LGBTQ people in the United States, tracking their cultural and political histories from the late 19th century to the historical present. We will also discuss theoretical approaches to studying the history of sexuality, including how sexual and gender categories (and people’s experiences of them) have changed over time and how they intersect with histories of race, class, religion, and region. In true American studies fashion, we will think with a wide range of primary texts—spanning across music, political zines, photography, film, law, and historical newspapers—and read interdisciplinary scholarship ranging from classics in LGBTQ history to more recent works that expand our archive of LGBTQ studies. Students will also pursue a historical research project on a topic of their own choosing, bringing their own interests and insights to the class.
CNST 30453 Executive Power (1 Credit Hour)
Since our nation’s founding, we have debated (and have increasingly litigated) the appropriate balance of power among the executive (the President), legislative (Congress), and judicial (the courts) branches of the federal government. Those debates have grown more salient and frequent in recent years. As Congress seems to retreat from its historical policymaking role, presidents increasingly fill that legislative vacuum by pushing their policy agendas through executive orders, agency action, and exercising their discretion to enforce federal laws. And many of those presidential acts have been challenged in federal court, leaving the courts to resolve thorny legal issues with profound policy implications.
This seminar will focus on the evolution of presidential power, with a focus on the 21st century. The course has two substantive goals. The first is to familiarize students with the historical aspects of presidential power. The course will cover a host of legal issues involving the president, with some attention paid to historical foundations. The second is to emphasize legal developments involving the president over the last 25 years. Whatever one thinks about any particular president, most would agree that 21st-century presidents have attempted to assert presidential power and authority in new, and oftentimes untested, ways. And by all accounts, that trend shows few signs of abating, especially in the continuing absence of legislative action. Accordingly, the course materials will emphasize legal disputes arising during the Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden Administrations.
CNST 30600 The Age of Alexander (3 Credit Hours)
Over the course of ten years in the fourth century BCE, King Alexander III of Macedon conquered more territory than any empire had ever previously controlled. His battlefield brilliance and unparalleled success, the vast scale on which he operated, his rapid rise to unimaginable power, and his early death (age 33), all combined to leave an indelible impression on his contemporaries. While Alexander barely lived long enough to rule over the empire he had gained, his military conquests engendered far-reaching political, social, cultural, and religious consequences. Historians use his death to mark the beginning of a new era, referred to today as the Hellenistic Age (323-31 BCE).
This course examines the achievements of Alexander and the impact they had on the ancient world. After placing Alexander in the Greek, Macedonian, and Persian cultural contexts in which he lived, we will trace his army's journey into Asia and back. Next, we will turn to a close study of the Hellenistic world: topics include city foundations, political and social institutions, economic developments, cultural interactions, and new directions in literature and science. Finally, we will address Alexander's legacy for Greco-Roman antiquity and beyond. Ancient authors and documents will be read in translation.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30602 Politics and Conscience (3 Credit Hours)
Against a backdrop of large-scale society, mass movements, and technological bureaucracy, the invocation of "conscience" recalls the individual human person as a meaningful actor in the political sphere. But what is conscience, and what are its rights and responsibilities? What is it about conscience that ought to command governmental respect? Are there limits to its autonomy? What role should conscience play in questions of war and peace, law-abidingness and civil disobedience, citizenship and political leadership? And how does the notion of conscience relate to concepts of natural law and natural rights, rationality and prudence, religion and toleration?
This course engages such questions through readings from the Catholic intellectual tradition (Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas More, Fransisco de Vitoria, Desiderius Erasmus, John Henry Newman, Karol Wojty'a/John Paul II, and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI) and other writers of the history of ethical-political thought (Cicero, Seneca, John Locke, Mahatma Ghandi, Jan Pato'ka, and Alexandr Solzhenitsyn). We consider also various contemporary reflections on conscience expressed in films, essays, letters, plays, short stories, speeches, and declarations, beginning with Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and Václav Havel's speech "Politics and Conscience."
This class serves as both the capstone course for the interdisciplinary minor Philosophy in the Catholic Tradition and an upper-level elective for Political Science majors and Peace Studies minors. Its format combines lecture and seminar-style discussion.
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30604 Tudor England: Politics and Honor (3 Credit Hours)
The period from 1485 to 1603, often feted as something of a 'Golden Age' for England, saw that country undergo serious changes that challenged the traditional ways in which the nation conceived of itself. These included the break from Rome, the loss of England's foothold in France, and the unprecedented experience of monarchical rule by women. Each of these challenges demanded creative political responses and apologetic strategies harnessing intellectual resources from classical, Biblical, legal, chivalric and ecclesiastical sources. This course will examine these developments. It will also look at how the English, emerging from under the shadow of the internecine dynastic warfare of the fifteenth century, sought to preserve political stability and ensure a balance between continuity and change, and, furthermore, how individuals could use these unique circumstances to their own advantage.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30605 France: From the Old Regime to the Revolution (3 Credit Hours)
France in 1700, ruled by the Sun King, Louis XIV, was the most powerful state in Europe, as well as a cultural center that drew the attention of the world. At Versailles, just outside of Paris, Louis created a palace that symbolized his authority and still stands as a masterpiece of art and architecture. Less than a hundred years later, in 1789, the French Revolution challenged and eventually destroyed the monarchy, with Louis XVI dying on the guillotine in 1793. The course will be organized around major political developments, and seeks to understand how the monarchy could grow so powerful during the seventeenth century, and then collapse at the end of the eighteenth. It will open with the establishment of the Bourbon family on the throne in 1589 and conclude with the rise of Napoleon in 1790s, with about one-third of the class concentrating on the revolutionary events that began in 1789. Understanding the political fortunes of France will involve exploring the ways in which the nation was being transformed by a combination of social pressures and cultural conflict, in particular the Enlightenment. In addition to reading a selection of works by historians students will read, view, and listen to some of the great cultural achievements of the time - the plays of Molière, the music of Lully, the novels of Voltaire, the paintings of David, to give just some examples.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30612 The Rise and Fall of Democracies and Dictatorship (3 Credit Hours)
Winston Churchill famously said in a speech in the House of Commons in 1947, "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried." For generations, social scientists have studied what makes democracy emerge and then survive or break down. And because some dictatorships have huge consequences for their own populations and the world, social scientists have also devoted considerable attention to analyzing the emergence, survival, and breakdown of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. This course will examine these issues. The first part of the course will examine different theoretical approaches to understanding why democracies and dictatorships emerge and then survive or fall. The second and longer part will focus on the emergence, survival, and fall of democracies and dictatorships in Europe and Latin America, mostly in the 20th century.
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30614 Modern Political Thought (3 Credit Hours)
odernity, and what it means, has increasingly become a topic of dispute in the 20th and 21st centuries, with defenders and critics on both left and right. Yet our modern heritage continues to shape even the thought of its critics and lay the groundwork for many of our unquestioned assumptions about political, social, and moral life. This course traces the story of modern political thought from its origins in the wake of the Reformation and Renaissance to the crisis of modernity experienced at the close of the XIXth. We will survey the emergence of questions surrounding justice and the nature of the state in the early social contract theorists (Hobbes, Rousseau) before moving to discuss the increasing concern over balancing the claims of individuals, civil society, and the modern state (Kant, Hegel, Mill) that arise in the wake of the French Revolution. Finally, we will trace the emergence of liberal modernity's critics who have remained influential in even contemporary evaluations of the modern project (Marx, Nietzsche). Through the close study of both text and context, we will debate to what extent the project of liberal modernity still remains valid and whether its claims have been unsettled.
CNST 30615 Liberalism and Conservatism (3 Credit Hours)
This course will explore the intellectual foundations of the constellation of ideas that have become the dominant political worldviews in modern American society. The course will focus on European sources of each tradition, as well as developments of each in America. Concepts that will be explored include progress, historicism, pragmatism, liberty, equality, diversity, cosmopolitanism, localism, tradition, prescription, authority, secularism and religion, particularly Catholicism.
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30619 Democracy and Virtue? (3 Credit Hours)
“Democracy & Virtue?” investigates a simple question: Does democracy foster virtue? The class will approach this question, first, through a philosophical investigation of the nature of political regimes, including democratic regimes. This investigation will take place via a careful reading of and discussions about Plato’s Republic. The class will then turn to an examination of America as a modern constitutional democracy. Our primary text for this part of class will be Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Additional readings from Montesquieu, The Federalist, and Catholic writers will also be introduced. Students should expect to read carefully and deliberately and to participate extensively in class, which will be conducted as a seminar conversation.
CNST 30621 Christianity/Commerce/Consumer (3 Credit Hours)
The capitalism and consumerism that now influences the entire world arose within a religious culture-that of Western Christianity-whose central figure extolled poverty and self-denial, and whose most important early missionary wrote that "the love of money is the root of all evils." How did this happen? This course takes a long-term view of the emergence of modern economic life in relationship to Christianity beginning with the upturn in commerce and the monetization of the European economy in the eleventh century and continuing through the relationship between markets and Christian morality in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. It pays particular attention to the ways in which the religio-political disruptions of the Reformation era laid the foundations for the disembedding of economics from Christian ethics and thus made possible modern Western capitalism and consumerism.
Corequisites: HIST 12390
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKCD-Core Cathol & Disciplines, WKHI - Core History
CNST 30622 17th Century England (3 Credit Hours)
England's seventeenth century provides one of the most compelling epochs of human history, full of a cast of remarkable characters. Once Elizabeth I died in 1603, a new dynasty, the Scottish royal house, the Stuarts, came to the throne in the person of James VI & I. A new political dynamic ensued. Insoluble tensions arose between perceived licentiousness in high politics on one hand and puritan moral rigour on the other, between royal control of religion and a hankering after policies based on literal Biblical interpretation and also between a gaping royal treasury and public reluctance to contribute financially to the realm. These, and other factors, resulted in the unthinkable: the dissolution of the ties that had held English politics and society together. The Civil War (or "Great Rebellion", or "Puritan Revolution" depending on the interpretation favoured) that resulted gave rise to a welter of new constitutional ideas, religious experiments and virulent anti-Catholicism. These were all set loose as King and Parliament fought for domination of the country. We will pay particular attention to the figure of Oliver Cromwell, who came to command English politics both before and after the hitherto unimaginable public execution of the king (who many believed was God's anointed). We will also ask why the English after allowing their king to be executed and their toleration a substantial Interregnum subsequently restored Charles II, their erstwhile king's son, as monarch. Remarkable figures that we will encounter and evaluate include the Leveller John Lilburne, the poet John Milton, Praise-God Barebones (yes, that is a name) and the libidinous Samuel Pepys.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30626 Contemporary Political Thought (3 Credit Hours)
A survey of some of the most influential political thinkers of the late 19th and 20th century. Topics include secularization, bureaucratization, moral pluralism, individual freedom and the place of politics in contemporary life. Readings from Mill, Nietzsche, Weber, Schmitt, Arendt, Berlin, and Strauss.
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30630 Old Regime France (3 Credit Hours)
Between 1643 and 1789, France underwent one of the most pivotal national transitions in modern European history. In the second half of the seventeenth century, Louis XIV reigned as the most powerful divine right monarch on the continent. He marshaled religious ideology, set cultural standards, pursued economic projects, and waged wars to consolidate his authority over the French and foreign powers alike. Yet, by the late eighteenth century, Louis XVI's crumbling crown gave way to the Revolution. The French ultimately dethroned the king and established a republic. Our class will explore how the French negotiated this tumultuous trajectory from subjects to citizens. We will analyze three main themes over the course of the Old Regime. First, we will wrestle with issues of modern state building including administrative reform, military campaigns, financial ventures, and expansion in the New World. Second, we will study the relationship among politics, culture, and religion as the French vacillated between critique and reform. Finally, we will probe the origins of the French Revolution. These sparks ranged from Enlightenment debates over contract theory and social privilege to the stresses of everyday life including taxes and food shortages. We will close as the revolutionaries imagined nascent citizenship on the eve of the republic. In sum, this course will ask: how did European democracy find its roots in an absolute monarchy? And how did generations of French work out this transition through their everyday lives?
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
Enrollment is limited to students with a program in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 30635 Catholicism Confronts Modernity (3 Credit Hours)
This class introduces students to the history of Catholicism since the French Revolution, focusing primarily on Europe. It examines how Catholics confronted the challenges of modernity - from liberal democracy and nationalism; to capitalism and modern science; to new political ideologies such as fascism and communism. We will explore not only how these encounters transformed the Church, but also how Catholicism itself has shaped modern politics and culture. The first part of the course begins with the nineteenth-century - culture wars - between Catholics and anticlerical forces, focusing in particular on popular devotions like the Lourdes pilgrimage and the perceived "feminization" of religion. The second part of the course shifts to the twentieth century and examines the relationship between the Catholic Church and modern political ideologies such as nationalism, fascism, communism, and democracy. The third part of the course explores modern Catholic art, literature, and film. Finally, we close by examining the more recent history of Catholicism since the transformative changes of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Readings are drawn from a range of primary sources - including novels, speeches, Church documents, works of art, and films - as well as secondary sources by historians.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKCD-Core Cathol & Disciplines, WKHI - Core History
CNST 30638 Foundations of Constitutional Order: Political Philosophy of Citizenship & Constitutional Government (3 Credit Hours)
This seminar-style course will examine foundational questions of constitutional order. We will begin from debates about the nature of political society among contemporary thinkers, J'rgen Habermas, Pope Benedict, John Rawls, and Carl Schmitt. We will then focus on key Ancient, Medieval, and Modern thinkers: Aristotle, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and the Federalist writers. Our aim will be to attain clarity about the questions that are fundamental to every constitutional order, especially the character of our "original" or pre-political condition, the status of war and peace, the nature of political authority and law, and the proper ends of political community. This course also serves as a gateway course for the Constitutional Studies Minor.
CNST 30639 Democracy Ancient and Modern (3 Credit Hours)
This course examines the theory, practice, and development of ancient Greco-Roman democracy. Particular attention is devoted to comparing ancient with modern forms of self-rule. Among the special topics studied are the origins of Greek democracy, its advantages and disadvantages as a form of government, alternatives to democracy, and democracy as an abiding legacy of classical civilization for the modern world. Familiarity with ancient Greco-Roman history is recommended, but not required.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
CNST 30640 The History of American Feminist Thought (3 Credit Hours)
This course traces American feminism from the margins of democratic thought in the eighteenth century to the center of modern political discourse and culture. Drawing on primary sources and recent scholarly work, we will investigate how the goals and meaning of feminism have changed over time, as well as how the boundaries drawn around who could and could not claim the title of "feminist" have shifted. We will approach feminism as an argument - not a received truth - responsive to contemporary historical developments and marked by divisions of race, class, sexual orientation, age, and religion. Course readings are organized around major turning points in the American feminist movement and chart significant continuities and contradictions that have animated each new wave, including questions of gender difference, economic dependence, reproductive rights, marriage, subjectivity, and citizenship.
3.000 Credit hours
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
CNST 30641 Religion in American Politics (3 Credit Hours)
This course will examine the many ways in which religion has been fused into American politics. In doing so, we will also explore the rising tide of secularism in the United States, which many argue has resulted from a backlash to the fusion of religion and conservative politics. Then it will turn to trying to solve the puzzle of America's religious pluralism—if religion is so politically divisive, why are Americans so accepting of (most) religions other than their own? What explains the exceptions to that acceptance? What are the implications of a secularizing America for religious pluralism?
CNST 30642 The Political Philosophy of Education (3 Credit Hours)
From Plato's Republic to Rousseau's Emile to John Dewey's Democracy and Education, political philosophers have understood that education is arguably the primary way that political and social values are articulated, realized and conveyed. In this course we will examine a variety of philosophies of education, ranging from ancient to contemporary authors, exploring contending ideas and ideals of education, with particular attention to higher education and implications for our own institution, the University of Notre Dame.
CNST 30643 Politics and Religion in a Secular Age (3 Credit Hours)
What is "secularism" and what does it mean to live in a "secular age"? These questions have become increasingly more urgent in the contemporary world as we witness the rise of religious-based political ideologies (e.g., Christian nationalism, Islamism, Hindu nationalism) that threaten the ideal of a secular modern state. This course both seeks to address these questions as well as problematize the very notion of a modern tradition of secularity in the West and beyond. By tracing the development of the concept of the "secular" from its origins in Enlightenment Christianity, we will investigate the perpetual oscillation between both the proponents of secularism and the reaction against it. In particular, this course will emphasize the reformulation of the secular ideal after the collapse of Enlightenment metaphysics and religious thought among thinkers such as Marx, Nietzsche, and Weber and contemporary American non-foundationalists such as John Rawls and Richard Rorty. Finally, we will survey the so-called "post-secularists" from both Western and Islamic traditions (Habermas, Taylor, Asad, Mahmood) in order to discuss the plausibility, or even desirability, of moving beyond the secular ideal for contemporary politics. Politics and Religion in a Secular Age: What is "secularism" and what does it mean to live in a "secular age"? These questions have become increasingly more urgent in the contemporary world as we witness the rise of religious-based political ideologies (e.g., Christian nationalism, Islamism, Hindu nationalism) that threaten the ideal of a secular modern state. This course both seeks to address these questions as well as problematize the very notion of a modern tradition of secularity in the West and beyond. By tracing the development of the concept of the "secular" from its origins in Enlightenment Christianity, we will investigate the perpetual oscillation between both the proponents of secularism and the reaction against it. In particular, this course will emphasize the reformulation of the secular ideal after the collapse of Enlightenment metaphysics and religious thought among thinkers such as Marx, Nietzsche, and Weber and contemporary American non-foundationalists such as John Rawls and Richard Rorty. Finally, we will survey the so-called "post-secularists" from both Western and Islamic traditions (Habermas, Taylor, Asad, Mahmood) in order to discuss the plausibility, or even desirability, of moving beyond the secular ideal for contemporary politics.
CNST 30644 Black Political Thought (3 Credit Hours)
This course will focus on the writings of Black political thinkers in the Americas, Africa, and Europe. Through critical examination of the conditions against, and contexts within, which the political theories of these thinkers are situated, this course hopes to arrive at some understanding of the principles, goals and strategies developed to contest and redefine notions/concepts of citizenship (vis-a-vis the imperatives of race/racism and the global colonial formations), humanity, justice, equality, development, democracy, and freedom.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSP - Core 2nd Philosophy
CNST 30645 Core Texts in Constitutionalism & Citizenship: Economics, Politics, and Justice (3 Credit Hours)
This course in American political economy seeks to understand philosophically the relationship between politics and economics. We will begin by exploring the fundamental theories of economic life in the West through the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Pope Leo XIII, paying particular attention to arguments for and against commercial society. We will then turn to the development of the American market and its role in shaping the character of individuals and the meaning of citizenship. Readings are drawn from, among others, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, Douglass, Wilson, Dewey, and DuBois. The course will end by considering the relationship between citizen and government in the contemporary United States. Throughout, we consider the ethics of the market economy, the system of production and exchange within which we live. Are its tremendous inequalities and accumulations just? How can we cultivate moderation amid consumerism? What role do virtue and leisure play in this system? Our task is to learn to produce and purchase in the service of a good life.
CNST 30646 Economy, Divine and Human (3 Credit Hours)
Economics and theology are often thought of as competing or contradictory explanations of human nature and behavior. By beginning with the theological premise that God's creation must hold together as a coherent whole, this course will instead show how economics rightly understood can illuminate our understanding of God's providential activity in the world. We will discuss the fundamental principles and insights of economics, relate them to a philosophical and theological vision of the human person in community, and show the central implications for ethics and political economy.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKCD-Core Cathol & Disciplines, WKIN - Core Integration
CNST 30647 Neoliberalism and the American University (3 Credit Hours)
This course examines the recent history of the American university. It asks how the last four decades of political-economic restructuring often described as “neoliberalism” – skyrocketing personal debt, privatization of public goods, and more – have reshaped its social function and institutional structure, its labor struggles and relation to local communities. Through readings in critical university studies, ethnic studies, and American literature, we will build a conceptual vocabulary to critically engage these transformations and, in the process, ask fundamental questions about the modern university: what it is, who it is for, and what it might yet be.
CNST 30648 Decolonial Theories (3 Credit Hours)
How do we define decolonization and/or decoloniality? What is the nature of the colonial condition these concepts seek to remedy? Decolonization and decoloniality have become a metaphor for decentering the hegemonic structure of Eurocentrism and re-positioning normative epistemologies and ontologies to include subaltern and marginalized ways of knowing, being, and doing. This course is a critical interrogation of the theories, philosophies, processes, and accounts of colonialism/coloniality and decolonization/decoloniality. The aim is to chart critical paths to rethinking the meaning and impact of these concepts. By interrogating how normative concepts, ideas, theories, and philosophies affirming the legitimacy of colonialism were employed and deployed to subjugate, exploit, and dominate colonized subjects, the course affirms a critical practice that opens new spaces for rethinking the meaning of decolonization. In this course, we will survey the core texts that have spurred decolonial theories and movements in Africa and the Americas. However, given that decolonial discourse now touches on nearly every aspect of society — past, present, and future — the topics covered in this course will by no means be exhaustive, but are designed to open intellectual space for renewed debates about the meaning and conceptual boundaries of decolonial theories.
CNST 30649 Commercial Society and the Common Good: Classic Texts (3 Credit Hours)
The last three centuries have seen the worldwide rise of Commercial Society and Democracy, creating the distinctively modern culture we now inhabit, and that inhabits us. This distinctive modernity has inspired both celebration and critique, the subjects of this seminar. The seminar emphasizes depth over breadth, exploring with intensity and leisure a very few works of deep cultural significance. The works chosen will vary from semester to semester to reflect faculty and student interests. Possible choices range from economic and social analysis to works of outstanding aesthetic distinction. For fall 2024, the seminar will focus on Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, and Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.
CNST 30650 Introduction to Economics and Catholic Thought (3 Credit Hours)
In this course we will discuss the relationship between economics and Catholic social teaching. We will learn about key principles in Catholic social thought, read key Papal encyclicals and other writings. We will then discuss key economic concepts and empirical facts known from the field of economics, and how these relate to Catholic social teaching. Finally, we will apply these ideas to discussions on labor, capital, finance, the environment, globalization, and development.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKCD-Core Cathol & Disciplines, WRIT - Writing Intensive
CNST 30651 Moderation in an Immoderate Age (1 Credit Hour)
With the rise of political and ideological extremism in recent decades, there have been renewed calls for moderation in politics. Yet, these appeals often seem more platitudinal than substantive. After all, what even is moderation? Is it simply a passive, unoffensive, middle-of-the-road approach to politics? Or is there a more robust understanding (and tradition) of political moderation worth recovering?
In this one-credit course, we will think about moderation as an important *virtue* in politics, especially in the liberal democratic context. After defining what it is exactly, by reading contemporary authors Aurelian Craiutu and Harry Clor, we will discuss a philosophical case for moderation through readings by Aristotle, Edmund Burke, and Michael Oakeshott. Then, we will consider a theological grounding for moderation within Christian political thought, reading selections from Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Blaise Pascal, Alexis de Tocqueville, and John Paul II. Finally, we will bring the conversation closer to home by discussing the appropriateness of moderation in response to an extreme injustice like slavery through a consideration of the varying perspectives (and actions) of Abraham Lincoln and William Lloyd Garrison.
CNST 30652 Rulers and Rebels (3 Credit Hours)
Russia under the tsars was a vast empire, a land of stunning achievement and immense inequality, mired in backwardness yet also a laboratory of modernity. Through works of scholarship, art, and cinema, and writings by Russians from the 18th to the early 20th centuries, we will explore how women and men, peasants and aristocrats, conservatives and revolutionaries, experienced the power and contradictions of the Romanov empire. This is a seminar. There will occasional lectures, but mostly we will have oral discussions about the readings, Russian historical films, and works of art that depict the everyday life of diverse groups in imperial Russian society. There are many ways of knowing the world - scientific, artistic, and other ways. Ours will be historical. This means that we will examine how the totality of life changed over time. We will consider the past from many angles, for instance, politics, culture, and the social order. We will discuss interpretations proposed by historians, analyze the primary sources on which they are based, and construct our own interpretations. We will not render facile judgments on the people of the past, but we will also explore what their legacy means for us today. We will examine imperial Russian history from three distinct perspectives: - What do we know about the actual course of imperial Russian history? - What are the original sources on which our knowledge is based? - What role do artistic representations of this era play in modern Russian culture?
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKHI - Core History
CNST 30653 Southern Constitutionalism and the American Tradition (1 Credit Hour)
This course will explore major constitutive questions that shaped southern thinking about the political/governmental structure in the United States, principally in the post-Revolution period and in the 19th century. Among the significant questions to be explored is whether emerging southern ideas about American constitutionalism derived from founding American principles or were a departure from them. Special consideration will be given to: the historical context that prompted southern ideas and movements; the purposes for which initiatives were introduced; developing southern ideas about federalism and government authority; key southern political leaders that merit attention; the challenge of slavery as a constitutional and political question; the drive that led southerners to secession and civil war in the mid-19th century; and the constitutional framework of the Southern Confederacy.
CNST 30654 Business and the Common Good (3 Credit Hours)
This seminar focuses on the place of wealth and commerce in a well-ordered life, both for the individual and the community. Among other topics, the course takes a special interest in the rich Catholic tradition of reflection on these topics, especially the Catholic social teaching relevant to business that has emerged in the last two centuries.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKIN - Core Integration, WRIT - Writing Intensive
CNST 30655 Faith & Power: Religion, Politics, and Nationalism in a Secular Age (3 Credit Hours)
This course investigates how religion influences what Americans think about politics and how they are involved in public life, including political participation and volunteering and community service. We will examine, for example, how and why religion influences positions on controversial social and political issues, such as abortion and immigration. And how the relation between religion and politics in American society has changed from the Christian Right and Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump, evangelicals, and Christian Nationalism. At the organizational level, the course seeks to understand what religious congregations are doing for their communities and how they are active in political life, such as mobilizing protest, inviting political speakers, talking about politics, or organizing voter registration drives. The analysis will pay close attention to religious tradition differences, including investigating whether and why evangelical Protestants differ in involvement in civic and political life compared to Catholics, Black Protestants, mainline Protestants, or the nonreligious. By investigating the social roots of the relation of religion and politics, the course will shed light on the complex and shifting relationship between religion and public life in the United States.
CNST 30656 Biblical Political Theory (3 Credit Hours)
This course takes a Great Books approach, placing the primary text and its interpretation at the center. Unlike some other works of political philosophy, the Hebrew Bible primarily makes its arguments through narrative, although other styles (law, oratory, poetry, etc.) are also integral to the biblical corpus. Thus in order to understand the ideas these texts hope to teach us, students must be familiarized with both the narrative itself and the tools that the narrative uses to convey ideas. The course therefore follows the principal biblical narrative--the history of Israel from Genesis to Kings--which spans the first half of the Hebrew Bible. Students will learn the story of the rise and fall of the ancient Israelite kingdom and analyze the political concepts that are deployed by the text as they arise in the narrative.
CNST 30657 Catholicism, Sex, Law, and Politics (3 Credit Hours)
In an age of growing polarization, how should human beings relate to one another, as members of families, social communities, professional callings, and civil society? This course explores ways that Catholic theology and Western political thought, particularly feminist thought, can engage each other on a fundamental aspect of human relationships: sexual difference. Though these traditions are often in tension, conversation between them will richly inform our study of the course’s core questions: How should we think about sexual difference, and how ought contemporary men and women live and work together in the family and the public sphere? We will take an interdisciplinary and historical approach, moving from the earliest days of Christianity through the medieval, Enlightenment, and modern periods and culminating in the present day. Theological sources will be drawn from Scripture, The Catechism of the Catholic Church, papal encyclicals, and writings of various Catholic theologians and philosophers. We will bring these sources into dialogue with ancient and modern political thinkers, their relationship to the tradition of feminist thought (with particular focus on first and second wave feminism), and constitutional law. Throughout the course, we will study underlying theories that inform our core questions: ideas about human nature, the meaning of sexual difference, equality, freedom, marriage and the family, human rights, and the ends of government and law.
We will aim to discover areas of compatibility between Catholicism, as a tradition of faith seeking understanding, and feminism, considered as a philosophical, political, and legal movement centrally concerned with sexual difference and its implications. The course will conclude with discussion of contemporary American debates about the relationship and roles of the sexes in marriage & the family, the home, the workplace, and public life. Students will learn both how to distinguish the modes of thought that characterize theology and political science as disciplines, and how to integrate them in order to draw conclusions about reality. They should emerge from the course not only well-formed in their own views on our focal questions, but able to engage robustly and charitably with perspectives that differ from their own.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKCD-Core Cathol & Disciplines
CNST 30658 Rich, Poor, and War (3 Credit Hours)
This course examines the interrelationships between economic injustice and violence. We begin by delineating two basic understandings of the nature of violence, that set out by Catholic social teaching and that which is dominant in American thought and law. We then investigate the gap between rich and poor both in the U.S. and worldwide. In the body of the course, we address the ways in which economic disparity intersects with the problem of violence in a wide range of social spheres, from the economic (workplace conditions), to the international political realms (terrorism, war, and revolution) to the domestic (domestic violence and sexual assault). In each case, we will examine various Christian responses to violence, from encouragement and fomentation to conciliation and forgiveness.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKDT-Core Devlopment. Theology
CNST 30659 Leadership & Virtue (3 Credit Hours)
What is effective leadership? What insights might philosophical texts and the experience of seasoned leaders give us? In this course, we will read and discuss the writings of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas on ethics and virtue. As a counterpoint, we will read Machiavelli’s The Prince, which seems to have been written in reaction to a virtue-centered approach to leadership. A key component of the course will be to hear from accomplished leaders in various fields—business, education, the military, and non-profit organizations—to test our philosophical reflections against the actual experiences of successful leaders. Students will be asked to read the assigned texts thoughtfully, engage in class discussion, and write several short reflection papers and one longer paper.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKSP - Core 2nd Philosophy
CNST 30660 The Abolition of Man (1 Credit Hour)
This course will examine how the very concept of being human has been transformed and confused over the last two hundred years. Beginning with a discussion of the themes set forth in C. S. Lewis’s book, "The Abolition of Man," the course will engage with a variety of texts from the nineteenth century onwards and reflect upon the impact of (and connections between) material conditions (e.g. technology) and philosophical ideas (e.g., transhumanism) on the deep questions of what it means to be a human being. It will also reflect upon how Christianity is challenged by these but also offers a cogent response.
CNST 30662 Faith and Human Flourishing (3 Credit Hours)
What does it mean to live a good life, to flourish as a human being? What does faith have to do with it? This "everyday ethics" course begins by resituating morality into the context of true happiness. We then examine various virtues, with attention to how the virtuous life is distinctive in the context of the Christian faith. We examine some particular issues (alcohol use, sexuality, end of life decisions), but our main emphasis is on how to live virtuous, fulfilling everyday lives, with careful attention to the difference faith makes in doing so.
CNST 30663 Artificial Intelligence and Human Flourishing (3 Credit Hours)
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming society, impacting how we live as individuals and communities. This course will examine the issues raised by AI from the perspective of the Catholic understanding of the human person, Catholic theological anthropology. The course will particularly focus on how to ensure that AI promotes rather than prevents human flourishing. In the process of exploring those broad concerns, the course will address specific issues related to AI, such as whether AI could be a person, relationships with chatbots, surveillance capitalism, the implications of Catholic Social Teaching for AI, AI in warfare, bias, transhumanism, and the impacts of social media.
CNST 30664 Meat, Markets, Medicines, and Other Moral Issues (3 Credit Hours)
This course introduces students to important concepts, positions, and debates in applied ethics. The course begins with a primer on normative ethics. Students are introduced to two major views in normative ethics: consequentialism and deontology. These positions reflect two contrasting answers to the question as to what makes our actions right or wrong, and what we owe to one another, morally speaking. The remainder of the course tackles real-world ethical issues, and proceeds in four parts. PART I: We engage with questions concerning the ethics of eating meat. Given the huge amounts of animal suffering found in the meat industry, are we morally required to become vegans? PART II: We critically consider the moral problems raised by certain kinds of markets, including the black market in human organs, and the use of surrogacy, and sweatshops. PART III: In the third part of the course, we investigate core issues in the ethics of medicine. One such issue concerns the shape that a state’s organ donation system ought to take; should such systems be opt-in, or opt-out? PART IV: The course concludes by examining matters of justice; for example, issues of global justice raised by widespread poverty, and justice in the distribution of educational opportunities.
CNST 30700 Citizenship & Constitutional Government Core Texts I: Classical & Christian Constitutionalism (3 Credit Hours)
The "Core Texts in Citizenship & Constitutional Government'' course sequence offers a select group of students an opportunity to study some of the seminal texts in history and philosophy of constitutional government.
Department approval required.
CNST 30701 Citizenship & Constitutional Government Core Texts II: Modern Constitutionalism (3 Credit Hours)
The "Core Texts in Citizenship & Constitutional Government'' course sequence offers a select group of students an opportunity to study some of the seminal texts in history and philosophy of constitutional government.
CNST 30702 Liberal Education and Citizenship (3 Credit Hours)
This class aims to understand liberal education—the ancient idea that learning is valuable for its own sake—and its relation to the human capacity to live freely. Can the pursuit of the truth make us better citizens, improve our character, or perhaps even save our souls? Or does civic piety only trap us deeper in the Cave? As students and teachers of both the liberal arts and politics, these are existential questions. Once liberal education was thought the characteristic marker of the leisured, ruling class, making it aristocratic, not democratic. To better understand whether liberal education offers something that the American democratic republic needs, this class traces its history: developing from Plato and Aristotle to the medieval university and the Renaissance humanists, it undergoes a profound critique in the early modern period and finds an uneasy home in the modern Western research university. While this model has come under repeated attack, it remains prestigious and envied across the world. Along the way, we will ask whether the university is necessarily secular or religious and consider Notre Dame's Catholic mission. In the context of today's opposition between populists and elitists, can elite graduates serve the common good?
CNST 33200 Behind the Iron Curtain (3 Credit Hours)
Was the Soviet Union a "workers' paradise" or an "evil empire?" Nearly three decades after this country transformed into what we now call "post-Soviet space," the legacy of the USSR looms large in international politics and culture. This course will offer students an introduction to Soviet history through film, which Lenin famously called "the most important of the arts," and literature, which Soviet writers used to "engineer human souls." Since the 1917 Revolution, art has had a close relationship to the Soviet state. At the same time, writers and filmmakers with individualistic and even rebellious tendencies have created some of the twentieth century's greatest masterpieces, including Dziga Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera and Mikhail Bulgakov's Master and Margarita. In this class we will explore how this tense relationship between art and the state developed in the first half of the twentieth century. Since cultural context is an important lens for our analysis, each artistic work will be accompanied by historical readings about the period in which it was produced, as well as artistic manifestos and contemporary reviews, when relevant. All films will be shown with subtitles and all readings offered in English. Students of the Russian language have the option of discussing the course material in Russian once a week with the instructor in a group for an additional course credit.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKAL - Core Art & Literature
CNST 33900 The American Dream & the American Constitution: The Life & Jurisprudence of SCJ Clarence Thomas (1 Credit Hour)
This one-credit course aims to explore the life and work of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the most significant living public figures in America. The course focuses on Mr. Thomas's own words, including his writings about his own life and his Supreme Court opinions. The course will address leading themes in American politics, including race, class, gender, and constitutional law. It is open to Notre Dame students by approval of the instructor.
The course involves three sessions with Justice Thomas and a session with Michael and Gina Pack, the documentary film makers of Created Equal. Students will also attend the on-campus presentation of Created Equal by the Packs as well as Justice Thomas's on-campus lecture.
CNST 33901 Church, State, and the American Supreme Court (1 Credit Hour)
This one-credit course aims to explore fundamental First Amendment issues. Co-taught by Prof. Phillip Muñoz and Judge Amul Thapar (U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit), the course will address leading themes in American politics including religious freedom and the relationship between church and state.
Class meetings include:
5 Class sessions of 100 minutes each - Tuesday 8:15-9:55pm (Aug. 30, Sept. 6, 13, 20, 27)
2 Public class events of 120 minutes each
CNST 33902 Race and American Constitutionalism (1 Credit Hour)
By the end of June 2023, the American Supreme Court will hand down a decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. The case is likely to be one of the most consequential decisions on race and the American Constitution in recent history. This one-credit course will examine the decision and its various opinions. Prior Supreme Court precedents on affirmative action and the larger legal and political issues surrounding the case will also be addressed.
The course will be co-taught by the Honorable Amul Thapar, judge on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Prof. Vincent Phillip Muñoz.
CNST 36001 Directed Readings (1-3 Credit Hours)
This one-credit Directed Readings section is for graduating seniors in the CNST minor who have not yet taken the gateway course. It will meet during the first 4-5 weeks of the spring semester (exact schedule TBD). Please email Tyler Castle (tcastle2@nd.edu) for more information and approval.
CNST 40001 Civil Liberties (3 Credit Hours)
Most courses in constitutional law narrate the Supreme Court's evolving positions on constitutional rights and institutions. This course starts not with the Supreme Court but with the <i>Federalist Papers</i>, from which it develops a general theory of the social and economic goals or ends of constitutional government in America. It then uses this theory as a framework for assessing the Supreme Court's position on property rights, race relations, personal privacy, and the place of religion in American life. This exercise can yield results that make for lively class discussion, not only about the Court, but about the adequacy of the Constitution itself. Grades will be based on a midterm and a final exam, with a paper option in lieu of the final.
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 40003 Political Disappointment in the 20th Century (3 Credit Hours)
This seminar explores literature and culture connected with 20th-century US social movements and their periodic failures. The 20th century included periods when major expansions in American democracy seemed possible, even inevitable. But these periods often ended without delivering on their transformative potential. In this class, we will analyze political disappointment and disillusion as it turns up in fiction and poetry, journalism and memoir, music and film, feminist best sellers and classics of psychoanalytic theory, by Ralph Ellison, Sigmund Freud, Audre Lorde, Tillie Olsen, Ezra Pound, Adrienne Rich, Nina Simone, Richard Wright, and others. In all of this, we will explore how individuals and collectives work to produce political meaning in and out of season. Course requirements will include two substantive essays, presentations, and active participation in online and in-class discussions.
CNST 40606 Race and the Constitution (3 Credit Hours)
Was the American Constitution originally a pro-slavery constitution that changed over time to a constitution that outlawed slavery and state-supported racial discrimination? Did the Civil War and subsequent developments through the civil rights acts of the 1960's represent a commitment implicit in constitutional principles from the nation's beginning? Do these constitutional principles embrace active governmental efforts to achieve an equal-opportunity society, including equal educational opportunity and an end to racism, a "private" attitude? Do constitutional principles promise a color-blind society? Or do they promise no more than color-blind governments? This course addresses these questions. Readings will include state documents like the Declaration of Independence and The Federalist Papers, the speeches of American politicians and other public figures, and decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court regarding slavery, public accommodations, education, voting, housing, and employment. Grades will be based on mid-term and final exams. Texts TBA.
CNST 43001 Citizenship and the American Novel (3 Credit Hours)
This course will explore how civic life is represented in American fiction. We will take up questions of form and style as they relate to distinctive visions of the common good in such novels as Nathaniel Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Henry Adams's Democracy: An American Romance, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Katherine Anne Porter's Pale Horse, Pale Rider, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, and Chang-Rae Lee's Native Speaker.
CNST 43002 Abraham Lincoln's Political and Constitutional Thought (3 Credit Hours)
We will study the political thought and statesmanship of Lincoln. We will pay special attention to his constitutional thought and action and examine whether he provides a valid model of constitutionalism in times of emergency. Readings will include Lincoln's works and historical studies of the Lincoln era. We will also view and discuss a number of film portrayals of Lincoln.
CNST 43604 Radical Politics (3 Credit Hours)
This course is a consideration of classic, politically Left texts in modern political theory that pose direct challenges to liberal theories of democracy: socialism and anarchism. Typical readings from: Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg, Gramsci, Lukács, Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin.
Enrollment is limited to students with a minor in Constitutional Studies.
CNST 43607 Catholicism and Empire (3 Credit Hours)
This course explores the historical relationship between the Catholic Church and the rise and fall of European overseas empires since the sixteenth century. We will consider how Catholic missionaries both reinforced and resisted colonial power structures; how the Church made sense of racial, religious, and cultural differences in its efforts to evangelize colonial subjects; how African, Asian, and Latin American Catholics developed their own distinctive spiritual practices; and how Catholics in both Europe and its former colonies grappled with the challenge of decolonization and how to undo the legacies of colonialism within the Church itself. Readings will be drawn from a range of sources, including missionary diaries and manuals, memoirs, artwork, papal encyclicals, films, novels, works of theology, and historical scholarship.
Satisfies the following University Core Requirements: WKCD-Core Cathol & Disciplines, WKHI - Core History
CNST 46001 Directed Readings (3 Credit Hours)
Independent study for Constitutional Studies minors.