**This class will be taught In-Person**
Do we have a democracy? Did we ever have one? Is such a thing possible? We treat democracy as an article of faith but, like everything else it’s been a highly contingent development, with hundreds of local adaptations. We will look at the idea(s) and practice(s) of democracy across the globe and the ages. We will consider its implicit premises: literacy, engagement, progress, and social coherence. We will wrestle with whether it’s a fluke of the modern world whose time has run out or if it can be rebuilt for the societies of the 21C.
