Classics in political science

Seminar

The course aims to familiarizing the students with the synthesis and in-depth analysis of a major book, considered as a classic, in political science. Being able to carefully read and discuss authoritative works is a central objective in a political science university degree, especially in the context of the Master's final dissertation. Intervening in the third year of the Bachelor, the seminar is the opportunity to get more familiar with this exercise. The course has also a linguistic objective, which is to allow the students to practice political science in its dominant language: English.

The students are asked to write and orally present their essay (on the book they choose) in English - see the readings section below. A linguistic support is provided during the second semester to help the student in formalizing their argument in English and preparing their oral defense.

Language support module

The purpose of this module is to provide customized English language support to help students improve their academic writing and presentation skills in the context of their class on classics in political science.
 

Seminar

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, the students will:

• be able to read carefully and entirely read a major work in political science
• have developed reading methods to improve their work on scientific articles and books
• be in a position to discuss an important text in political science by confronting the argument to other authors, approaches and readings
• have acquired an experience in writing and presenting a personal work in English

Language support module

At the end of the module, students should be able to write an academic-level essay in English and should be able to present it orally in a clear and intelligible way.  The CEFRL objective level of the module is C1.

Language support module

Students are expected to have a good level of general English before the start of the class.

Seminar

The course is comprised of four components that will allow students to gradually understand and analyse the authors:

• Introduction to the seminar, given at the beginning of the academic year, defining the seminar's objectives (7 October 2022)
• Individualised support. The students will be distributed in groups, corresponding to the book they chose and supervised by a teacher of the Political Science Department. It will help the student to work on the substance of their written work and oral presentation in English.
• Sessions of exercises on drafting and oral presentation in English will be organized and supervised by a teacher form the ISLV (Frédéric Depas)
• writing a short essay in English
• oral defense in English

Language support module

Thursday, February 23rd:

The first class will be organized for the whole group of students.  This class will deal with the vocabulary necessary to write an argumentative essay in English, with the structure of essays, and with some formal issues.

Students also have to hand in their research question on that day.

Friday, March 3rd:

Students will be required to email the outline of their essays to F.Depas@uliege.be by the end of that day at the latest.

Thursday, March 9th:

Students can present the outline of their essay in smaller groups during the second class, and they can obtain feedback about it.

Thursday, March 30th:

The purpose of the third class is to help students improve their presentation skills in English.  The whole group will be present.

Students will also have to hand in the introduction of their essays during that class.

From Thursday, April 20th to Thursday, April 27th:

In groups of 4 to 6, students will obtain feedback on their introductions and will be given the opportunity to rehearse their exam oral presentation.
 
 

Seminar

The course is organised as individual meetings and seminars. Students are expected to actively participate in every session.

Language support module

This is a face-to-face module, but the students will have to hand in the outline of their papers by email.

Seminar

Compulsory reading (one of these readings must be chosen):

Edward Carr, The Twenty Years' Crisis, 1919-1939, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Charles Tilly and Tarrow Sidney, Contentious politics, Oxford University Press, 2012.

Joseph H. H. Weiler, The Constitution of Europe : 'Do the New Clothes Have an Emperor ?' and Other Essays on European Integration, Cambridge University Press, 1999, 384 p.

Bruno Latour, Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy, Harvard University Press, 2004.

Sheila Jasanoff, The fifth branch: Science advisers and policy-makers, Harvard University Press, 1990.

Language support module

Course notes will be available on eCampus at a later date.

Seminar

Exam(s) in session

Any session

- In-person

oral exam

Written work / report


Additional information:

The assessment is based on several tasks.

First of all, students must read the texts themselves and work the subject of their essay and their oral presentation. As part of this task, they must meet regularly one member of the teaching team. If students fail to do so, one point will be removed every time they fail to turn up.

Secondly, students must write a short essay in English. The essay should be maximum 5 pages long (Times, 12, 1.5 line spacing, excluding the cover page, table of contents and the bibliography) and is worth 50% of the final grade.

Thirdly, students must do an oral presentation in English within the framework of a panel discussion. The defense will last maximum 15 minutes and is worth 50% of the final grade.

The followed criteria are applied to the assessment: 1) ability to understand and synthetize the book; 2) quality of the discussion with the book's argument and inclusion of other authors;  3) structure of the essay and the presentation.

For the second session, students are invited to contact the professor.

Seminar

The course is held during the second session.

NOTICE: to allow students to properly organise their time and their reading programme, an introductory session will be held at the beginning of the first session (7 October 2022, 1.30-3.30pm - Classroom B31 Tocqueville)

Language support module

A list of the different groups and a detailed timetable for each group will be available on eCampus before the first class.

Seminar

Dr. Julien Pomarède
Assistant Professor in International Politics, Departement of Political Science

https://www.uliege.be/cms/c_9054334/en/directory?uid=u240686

Bât. B31 International Politics
Quartier Agora
place des Orateurs 3
4000 Liège 1
Belgique

Office R.77, level 0
email: julien.pomarede@uliege.be

Language support module

Frédéric Depas
bureau des enseignants de l'ISLV
B33 - niveau -1
Email: F.Depas@uliege.be