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POLITICS 318
Mid-Term Examination (20%) |
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Introduction: Death in America |
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Data on Death in
America Know the general
trends and shapes and distributional patterns Amartya Sen, Live Long and Prosper and Amartya Sen, "Mortality as an Indicator of Economic Success and Failure." Economic Journal, Vol. 108, January 1998, 1-25 (On Reserve) or online at jstor |
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http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/other/atlas/atlas.htm Results: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/misc/atlasres.pdf Maps for All Causes: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/gis/atmapall.pdf |
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The Historical Meanings of Mortality Read: Aris, Philippe. 1980. "Five Variations on Four Themes," in The Hour of Our Death. (Trans.) H. Weaver. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 602-14. the Aries worksheet |
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Analyzing Arguments, Reasons, and Values: Theorists of Liberalism and What
is Liberalism? Read: Gaus, Gerald F. 1996. Liberalism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, NOV 30 1996 |
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Regarding the Readings – you should be familiar with:
the overall
argument -
key specific
theoretical, conceptual or argumentative moves made by the author. -
if the author
emphasizes it, you should pay attention to it, even if we did not always get
to devote the same amount of time to it in class. -
your own
assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the text as an argument about
how to think and what to do regarding the topic. |
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Regarding the
websites – you should
have some sense of what the pro and con positions sound like in the real
world, although you do not need to have memorized the specific organizations
etc that post the sites. |
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Regarding both – and the dynamics of public discourse
about policy you might think about - the role of language (rhetoric) - the role of numbers (statistics) - the role of examples, images, and emotivist
appeals - the role of appeals to liberty, equality,
community (ethics) |