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POLI 4911

Special Topics

0.5 credits · Undergraduate

Fall 2026

Topics

  • (I be making additions/changes to this as we proceed
  • th: Introduction to the class and its requirements and to rhetoric and its political uses
  • st: What is rhetoric and what is it for? Ancient and modern examples
  • Aristotle Art of Rhetoric (AR) Book One, (in Bartlett edition)
  • Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War: Pericles’ “Funeral Oration” (430 BCE)
  • Ronald Reagan “Space Shuttle Challenger Tragedy” Address
  • Joe Biden: Address upon dropping out of the 2024 campaign for U.S. presidency
  • th: Kinds of rhetoric
  • Aristotle AR: Book One, (in Bartlett edition)
  • Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War: Mytilenean debate (Cleon
  • Diodotus)
  • Lou Gehrig: “Farewell Address”
  • Philadelphia: opening statement at trial (Denzel Washington)
  • th: Passion, Character, and Argument
  • Aristotle AR: Book Two, (in Bartlett edition)
  • Shakespeare Henry V “St. Crispin’s Day”
  • Ukrainian President Zelenskyy: “Speech to U.S. Congress”

Readings

Fall 2015 · Special Topics in Criminology / Special Topics

Topics

  • mass incarceration as tools for maintaining social order, racial, class, and ethnic
  • conflict have become an important political tendency throughout the world. There
  • are currently more individuals confined inside penal institutions across the world
  • than in the past. The purpose of the seminar is to study the implications of these
  • transformations in punishment regimes and prison systems
  • the prison-industrial
  • complex
  • race and incarceration. The objective is to think through the political
  • nature of incarceration how penal practices are oppressive

Readings

  • Required: 1. P. Scraton and J. McCulloch, eds. The Violence of Incarceration (Routledge publishers) ISBN: 13-978-0-415-96313-8 ON RESERVE IN
  • Recommended: 1. R. Sparks, The Politics of Imprisonment.
  • Recommended: 2. Michele Foccult, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.
  • Recommended: 3. Julia Sudbury, Global Lockdown.
  • Recommended: 4. Jeffrey Ross edited, The Globalization of Supermax Prisons
  • Recommended: 5. R. J. Simon & Christian A De Waal, Prisons the World Over
  • Recommended: 6. Michael Tonry, Why Punish? How Much?
  • Recommended: 7. Craig Russel, Incarceration Around the World
  • Recommended: 8. Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
  • Required: September 18: Theoretical Approaches to Punishment
  • Required: September 25: Rose Ricciardelli: Chapter 1
  • Required: October 2: Rose Ricciardelli: Chapter 2
  • Required: October 9: Rose Ricciardelli, Chapter 3
  • Required: October 16: Rose Ricciardelli, Chapter 4
  • Required: October 23: Rose Ricciardelli, Chapters 5 and 6
  • Required: October 30: Rose Ricciardelli, Chapter 7 and
  • Required: McCulloch: Chapter 13
  • Required: WEEK: 11 Draft Paper Presentations
  • Required: WEEK: 12 Draft Paper Presentations
Sources