GHEA21 Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Summer 8-2026
Abstract
Teaching political theory is, in many ways, teaching how to think about the political world abstractly – about justice, equality, legitimacy, and power – but also how to locate those abstractions within lived experience. Yet this balance is not easily achieved, particularly in classrooms situated outside the Western contexts in which much of the political theory canon was written. For many students, especially those taking political theory as a general education or distribution requirement, canonical texts can appear distant and irrelevant, filled with assumptions that feel alien or exclusionary. At its core, the study argues that exploratory and analytical writing – particularly when structured, low-stakes, and cumulative – creates the conditions for students to encounter theoretical texts with greater agency, rhetorical awareness, and contextual sensitivity.
Recommended Citation
Božac, Zlata, "Reading the Western Canon from Elsewhere: Teaching Political Theory Through Writing" (2026). GHEA21 Publications. 47.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/osun_publications/47
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.