Syllabus
Session 1:The Value of the State and the Significance of the Individual in Carl Schmitt’s Early Legal-TheoreticalWritings, eds. Vinx and Zeitlin (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Introduction and chapter 1.
This first session will examine Schmitt’s legal and political theory (especially Schmitt’s state theory)prior to the outbreak of the First World War.
Session 2:The Value of the State and the Significance of the Individual in Carl Schmitt’s Early Legal-TheoreticalWritings, eds. Vinx and Zeitlin (Cambridge University Press, 2021), chapters 2 and 3.
This second session will continue to examine Schmitt’s legal and political theory (especially Schmitt’sstate theory) prior to the outbreak of the First World War.
Session 3:Carl Schmitt, Dictatorship in Holzl and Ward trs., chapters 1-2.
This third section will begin to consider Schmitt’s historical narrative of dictatorship in his Dictatorship (1921).
Session 4:Carl Schmitt, Dictatorship in Holzl and Ward trs., chapters 3-4.
Session 5:Carl Schmitt, Political Theology (1922)This fifth section will treat Schmitt’s Political Theology in both its argument, text, and context.
Session 6:Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (1927/1932)This fifth section will treat Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political in both its argument, text, andcontext.
Annotation
The course is taught by Dr. Samuel Garrett Zeitlin from the Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge. It will take place 2.-6.1. 2023.
This seminar will focus on understanding the early political thought of the jurist and political thinker
Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) prior to his engagements with the National Socialist Party of Germany, thus, primarily in the period between 1914 and 1927. This seminar will span Schmitt’s early writings from his Habilitation (and first account of state theory), The Value of the State and the Significance of the Individual (1914) to Dictatorship (1921) to Schmitt’s Political Theology (1922) and The Concept of the Political (1927/1932). Themes of the course will include state theory, the justification of the state, the relationship between politics and law, the relationship between politics and theology, political theology, authority, law, and the relation between Schmitt’s political anthropology and his theory of the state.