Justice Unbound: Voices for the 21st Century

• In Event: TLC at APSA: Diversity & Inclusiveness: Restructuring the Curricula Panel

Abstract

I have been teaching a course on theories of justice for several years. When I started teaching it the reading list went from selections from Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics to contemporary debates among Rawls, Nozick, Sandel, Walzer, and G.A. Cohen. Although clearly important, I increasingly felt that the selections were inadequate to represent the gamut of views on justice and in fact excluded voices that deserved much more attention than they were given, those of women and minorities. I started including more of those voices and, in the end, my course changed considerably. The result of this new curriculum in the classroom has been a much higher engagement by students, more thoughtful analyses in their essays and responses to the readings, greater ability to make connections between the readings and with their lives, and more inclusive class discussions. It became clear that my students could relate with the material and were passionate about it. I collected those readings in an anthology which also included case studies to further clarify the importance of the concepts addressed in the theoretical material (forthcoming in January 2019).
My goal in the paper presentation is to address how we select our readings in political theory classes and particularly in courses on justice to make them more diverse and responsive to our times, and explore pedagogical tools to increase students' engagement with the texts and their civic engagement.

Author

• Patrizia Longo, Saint Mary's College of California