POL 281 - The Politics of Marriage and the Art of Democracy

Credits: 4
Planned Offering: Spring 2014 and alternate years

Are marriage and democracy a good match? Does heterosexual couplehood sustain a health democratic community? We examine conceptions of the connection between marital alliances and egalitarian, individualist political practices. Using three novels – Anthony Trollope’s Phineas Finn , Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy , and selections from Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full – in which the dramas surrounding marriage partners are embedded in the struggle for a more democratic politics in their protagonists’ respective communities, we consider how marriage practices in earlier, undemocratic regimes are challenged by the demands of democratic political life. Students work in groups to write their own fictions about contemporary courtship and marriage politics. LeBlanc.