Write a commentary on a piece of primary literature (one extract from Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau), based on their critical reading of a piece of secondary literature (one article from an academic journal in the area).

Write a commentary on a piece of primary literature (one extract from Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau), based on their critical reading of a piece of secondary literature (one article from an academic journal in the area). The commentary will particularly focus on a specific concept (e.g. ‘power’, ‘liberty’, ‘property’, ‘toleration’, ‘justice’, ‘obligation’, ‘the people’, ‘general will’, ‘society’, ‘representation’ etc.).A commentary is a line-by-line or even word-by-word explication of a text through its context. Context requiring elucidation includes the historical context of the author’s life (events, wars, laws, etc.) the intellectual context (philosophical and scientific knowledge of the time, religious beliefs, etc.) and the conceptual context (cross-references to related passages in the same and other works by the same author, and cross-references to other authors’ works)Students are invited to discuss their choices and plan with the lecturers.ESSENTIAL – the Commentary should include:• a detailed analysis and discussion of the primary text they have chosen (e.g. one chapter from Hobbes’s Leviathan, or two paragraphs from Rousseau’s Social Contract, etc.)• a critical use of the piece of secondary literature they have chosen (from History of Political Thought, Political Theory, European Journal of Political Theory, Contemporary Political Theory, Political Studies. Articles from edited books or other academic journals may be chosen with the module leader’s approval)NB: you can also use textbooks, but no commentary exclusively based on textbook chapters is acceptable – they are too generic for the purpose!

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