“Teaching as if Citizens Would Seek Their Counsel”: Pedagogy in the Berkeley School

• Published in: PS, political science & politics Vol. 50; no. 3; pp. 803 - 806
• Main Author: Weiner, Brian A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.07.2017
• Subjects: Citizens; Consciousness; Course Descriptions; Democracy; Education; Graduate studies; Interdisciplinary Approach; Legitimacy; Oral history; Political ideologies; Political science; Political theory; Politics; Studies; Symposium: The “Berkeley School” of Political Theory: A Discussion of its Beginnings, its Development, and the Disagreements over Calling it a “School”; Teaching; The Profession
• ISSN: 1049-0965; 1537-5935
• DOI: 10.1017/S1049096517000646

The Profession Symposium: The "Berkeley School" of Political Theory: A Discussion of its Beginnings, its Development, and the Disagreements over Calling it a "School" My introduction to the Berkeley political science department, where I started graduate studies in 1983, was both unnerving and instructive. If by a "school of thought" one means there was one central figure surrounded by disciples; or that an orthodoxy existed as to the methods of inquiry or the central texts that must be studied; or even that the members' political ideologies or leanings on political issues of the day within and outside of the academy were a matter of dogma, then one can point to many discontinuities, disagreements, and tensions within the Berkeley circle. [...]although my initial greeting by the Berkeley political science department was a back being turned to me, I eventually understood the relationship between the theorists at Berkeley and the rest of the department as less combative and more one in which there was an unspoken agreement to coexist--albeit sharing little more than mundane concerns of the departmental apparatus. Rather, their prime concerns were teaching, both undergraduate and graduate, and writing political theory--always with their audiences in mind as well as a reflective self-consciousness regarding the nature of the project of political theory. Schaar (1981), in the foreword to his book, Legitimacy in the Modern State, rhetorically asked, "Should not teachers of political theory proceed in their work--that is, their teaching--as if politicians and citizens would seek their counsel?" Schaar's question suggested...