Undergraduate Course: Kant and International Relations (PLIT10185)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course explores key problems in contemporary international relations through the political thought of Immanuel Kant and his interpreters. Students will be introduced to key texts, contexts, and interpretations of Kant's political thought and their relationship to issues like climate change, race, gender, colonialism, cosmopolitanism, war, and international law. |
| Course description |
This course explores key problems in contemporary international relations through the political thought of Immanuel Kant and his interpreters. Kant's articulation of the ultimate end of human political organisation on earth, a global international system, is the starting point for theorizing about world order today and thus remains a touchstone of contemporary debates across realist, liberal, and critical approaches in international relations. This account is premised on hierarchies of race, gender, and civilization that still shape contemporary world politics. Students will be introduced to key texts, contexts, and interpretations of Kant's political thought and their relationship to contemporary dilemmas related to the international politics of issues like climate change, race, gender, colonialism, cosmopolitanism, war, and international law. Students will learn key concepts that shape contemporary political action like autonomy, sovereignty, progress, and critique and develop a sense of the way these concepts both enable and constrain possibilities for political order on a world scale today. Course delivery will be a mix of lecture and seminar-style class discussion. Assessments will include reading reflections, a concept analysis, and an essay.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least four Politics/IR courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). Only university/college level courses will be considered. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 10,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 10,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
30% Reading Reflections (three reading reflections, each worth 10%) (400 words each - 1200 words in total)
20% Concept Analysis (800 words)
50% Essay (2000 words) |
| Feedback |
Feedback on all assessed work shall normally be returned within three weeks of submission. Where this is not possible, students shall be given clear expectations regarding the timing and methods of feedback. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Closely read and interpret critically key texts by Kant and his interpreters in international relations theory and international political thought.
- Identify and understand key theories, concepts, and debates related to Immanuel Kant and International Relations, and their implications for present-day international politics.
- Critically evaluate and reflect on these theories, concepts and debates by examining their relationship to Kant's historical context, their changing meanings over time, and their mobilisation by contemporary scholars and practitioners.
- Make written and spoken contributions to discussions and debates about key questions and problems in international relations theory related to Kantian legacies in international politics.
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Reading List
Flikschuh, Katrin, and Lea Ypi, eds. Kant and colonialism: historical and critical perspectives. OUP Oxford, 2014.
Hutchings, Kimberly. Kant, critique and politics. Routledge, 2013.
Kant, Immanuel. Kant: political writings. Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Molloy, Sean P. Kant's international relations: the political theology of perpetual peace. University of Michigan Press, 2019.
Valdez, Ines. Transnational cosmopolitanism: Kant, Du Bois, and justice as a political craft. Cambridge University Press, 2019. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
The course will equip to students to:
identify and analyse the strengths and challenges of different international systems, and develop processes for promoting international political progress;
evaluate, critique, and build on the work of IR scholars;
be independent learners who take responsibility for their own learning and are committed to continuous reflection, self-evaluation and self-improvement;
be able to sustain intellectual interest by remaining receptive to both new and old ideas, methods, and ways of thinking;
Make effective use of oral, written and visual means to critique, negotiate, create and communicate understanding |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Regan Burles
Tel:
Email: rburles@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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