| Prof. James Sheehan speaks of liberalism as a "distinctive historical phenomenon" and as the "first universal, global ideology," which sought a marriage with science and a divorce from traditional thinking. 08DR/CL SCA 40 min. |
| Prof. David Kennedy explains how America's liberal political philosophy and isolationist foreign policy reinforced a national identity not bound to any foreign culture and resistant to any foreign influence. 08DR/CL SCA 50 min. |
| Professor James Sheehan provides the historical framework for understanding Alexis de Tocqueville's perspectives on democracy and European revolution. 08DR/CL SCA 45 min. |
| Here professor David Kennedy explores how Tocqueville's Democracy in America will serve historians well as new democratic societies evolve and the viability of democracy continues to be tested. 08DR/CL SCA 60 min. |
| Professor James Sheehan discusses the social, political, and intellectual context surrounding the birth and development of Marxism, a revolutionary response to aristocratic rule, in Europe. 08DR/CL SCA 50 min. |
| Professor David Kennedy explores the Marxist perspective on America. He explains why Marxists first discounted America as irrelevant to the history of Europe, and then reversed themselves. 08DR/CL SCA 50 min. |
| In this program professor James Sheehan explains how Harriet Beecher Stowe's best selling 19th-century novel Uncle Tom's Cabin served to awaken the American populace to its own hypocrisy about slavery. 08DR/CL SCA 50 min. |
| David Kennedy provides the background for understanding America's moral sluggishness in addressing the issue of slavery. He explains how slavery in America was a historically "peculiar" phenomenon. 08DR/CL SCA 50 min. |
| James Sheehan introduces the concepts of nation and nationalism. He also shows how a people's desire for self-determination through nation forming has allowed them to be manipulated by their rulers. 08DR/CL SCA 50 min. |
| Examines the concept of "nation" in terms of the experience of the US under the leadership of Abraham Lincoln, who proved that a democratic government could sustain itself under crisis circumstances. 08DR/CL SCA 50 min. |
| Professor James Sheehan uses the competing perspectives of Realism and Liberalism to provide a theoretical framework for understanding dramatic changes in international relations. 08DR/CL SCA 50 min. |
| How the emergence of the U.S. as an international power in the 20th century signified a dramatic change in the world order and served as a definitive test of the resilience of a liberal democratic society. 08DR/CL SCA 50 min. |
| Professor James Sheehan discusses the social and historical factors that caused liberal ideology to come under scrutiny. He focuses on the theories developed by modernist Sigmund Freud. 08DR/CL SCA 50 min. |
| Examines the adaptation of American liberal thought to the forces of modernization, focusing on two American intellectuals, William James and John Dewey, who saw resilience in American liberalism. 08DR/CL SCA 50 min. |
| Professor James Sheehan shows how all cultures have exhibited exclusionary tendencies, many of which were based on biological distinctions that in the broadest sense could be termed "racism." 08DR/CL SCA 50 min. |
| David Kennedy discusses dilemma of race in America, focusing on author Richard Wright, whose powerful novel, Native Son, was believed by many to have transformed American attitudes about race. 08DR/CL SCA 50 min. |
| Addresses the issue of gender, specifically womanhood, showing how the fact of being born a female in liberal society brought with it certain biologically based expectations and certain social limitations. 08DR/CL SCA 50 min. |
| Addresses the issue of gender from legal, economic, historical, and philosophical perspectives. The gender issue has required liberal society to allow women to enjoy the full benefits society has to offer. 08DR/CL SCA 50 min. |
| Prof. James Sheehan discusses the relationship between the individual and the community in liberal society and how liberal societies have vacillated between emphasizing the individual or the community. 08DR/CL SCA 60 min. |
| David Kennedy focuses on the consequences of liberalism for individuals within American society and calls for all individuals to appreciate what it means to live in history and for history to live within them. 08DR/CL SCA 50 min. |