Browse Hierarchy HST7704: Patria and Cosmopolis: Nation, Country, and Humanity in Political Thought, from ancient Greece to the Age of Revolutions

The module analyses the reflections on patriotism or love of country, cosmopolitanism or attachment to Humanity, and the nation or alternative groups commanding people's loyalties in the thought of a great range of thinkers, from classical antiquity to the threshold of the modern era - the time of the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions. Besides many thinkers from a wide range of periods, the module focuses on the significant contributions of non-European or female authors (Augustine of Hippo, Ibn Khaldun, Toussaint Louverture, Mary Wollstonecraft, Germaine de Staël) and their distinct perspectives. Students will master the vital importance of historical contextualization in understanding the changing meanings of concepts as important as patriotism, nationalism, cosmopolitanism, nation, state, race, ethnicity, and related terms. The module will also highlight the issues related to the reception and use of older concepts, ideas and texts in later times and how they were interpreted, misinterpreted or distorted.