LDSP : Are Leaders Born or Made? Monday/Wednesday 10:30-11:45, Jepson Hall 108 Spring 2010 Dr. Joanne B. Ciulla

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1 LDSP : Are Leaders Born or Made? Monday/Wednesday 10:30-11:45, Jepson Hall 108 Spring 2010 Dr. Joanne B. Ciulla Office: Jepson 244 Phone Hours: by appointment Course Description The question Are leaders born or made? asks us to consider leaders as people and as a set of ideas. No matter what you think about the born/made question, your opinion inevitably rests on your concept of a leader. This course explores the origins of the idea of a leader in human history and how that concept shapes the way that we think about leaders today. The leader/follower relationship is a complex moral and emotional one that requires us to look at how people throughout human history determined who and what leaders are and should be. The course approaches the born/made question using literature from the sciences and the humanities. Students use the humanities to critically assess what evolutionary biology and zoology, paleontology, and anthropology have to say about the born question. They search ancient, classic, and some contemporary texts from religion literature, art, history, and philosophy in Eastern and Western cultures to ponder the made question. This course challenges students to discover some of the underlying ideas about leaders that transcend place and time. Course Plan and Objectives This is a discovery course. In it, the class and the instructor work together to answer the question Are leaders born or made? The syllabus lays out some general questions and the rest of the content will be determined by the class s work. The assigned readings will be drawn from the bibliography (a partial one is attached) and other sources. All readings will either be from sources handed out in class or posted on Blackboard. Students will receive a copy of Matt Ridley s book in class. In some classes, there will be a common reading and in others students will be asked to read different articles. Readings and student assignments will be filled in as the class develops its research. Guest speakers will visit class and the class will take a field trip to the Smithsonian. Students should come to class prepared to discuss the readings and/or present the findings of the topic they have been asked to research. The instructor will assess students based on their engagement in the class, and their resourcefulness, and their ability to produce insightful research. Assignments and Grading 20% Participation This includes class attendance, participation in class activities, and research assignments. 40% Research Briefings (each student will do 4 of these, worth 10% each) The briefings will be delivered orally in class and the notes for them posted on Blackboard. 20% Exam on April 5 20% Final paper, each student will give their answer to the question based on the research done in class and their own research. Due on April 14. 1

2 Class Schedule January 11 Introduction I. What do animals and evolution tell us about nature and nurture? January 13 Read: Arnold M. Ludwig Why Rulers Rule. King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, January 18 January 20 Read: Matt Ridley, The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nurture. New York: Harper Perennial, Read: The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nurture January The Greater Good Conference For more information go to: January 25 Read: The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nurture II. What can we learn from the ancients? January 27 Dr. Hugh Leibert (UR, Jepson School) on the Sicilian leader Agesilaus Read: Plutarch. The Life of Agesilaus. Plutarch s Lives. February 1 February 3 III. What about families of leaders and leader s families? February 8 Prof. Woody Holton (UR, history department) on Abigail Adams Read: Gelles, Edith B. Portia: The World of Abigail Adams. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, (e-book in library) Woody Holton. Abigail Adams Last Act of Defiance. American History 23, April, February 10 February 15 February 17 IV. What do descriptions of God and gods tell us about what people think about leaders? February 22 February 24 March 1 No class (to make up for The Greatest Good Conference) 2

3 March 3 March 8 & 10 Spring Break March 15 V. Are leaders born as men? March 17 Read: Arnold M. Ludwig, It s a Man s World. King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, March 22 March 24 VI. Who is running the world and what are they like? March 29 March 31 April 5 Exam April 7 April 12 April 14 Dr. Valarie Petit (EDHEC Leadership & Corporate Governance Research Centre, Lille, France) on the legitimacy of French business leaders Final papers due April 19 Compilation of class research April 21 Conclusion Partial Bibliography (for the first part of the course) Axelrod, Robert M, The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books, Alexander, Richard D, The Biology of Moral Systems. New York: Aldine De Gruyter, Bhagavad Gita. Translated by Stephen Mitchell. New York: Three Rivers Press, Boyd, Robert and Richerson, Peter J. The Origin and Evolution of Cultures. New York: Oxford University Press, Brown, Donald, E. Human universals. Boston: McGraw-Hill,

4 Berger, Lee R, In the Footsteps of Eve. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, Buss, David M., Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Dawkins, Richard, The God Delusion. New York: Haoughton Mifflin, Dawkins, Richard, The Selfish Gene. New York: Oxford University Press, Dennett, Daniel Clement. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, Dugatkin, Lee A. Cooperation Among Animals: an Evolutionary Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press, Dunbar, Robin, Knight, Chris, and Power, Camilla, The Evolution of Culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, Eisler, Riane. The Chalice and the Blade. New York: Harper Collins, Fagan, Brian M. People of the Earth, (10 th edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Gelles,Edith B. Portia: The World of Abigail Adams, chapter 8. Bloomington: Indiana University Press (1995). (e-book in library) Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse. Translated by David Ferry. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, Glover, Jonathan. Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press Jones, Steve. Y: The Decent of Men. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Holton, Woody. Abigail Adams Last Act of Defiance. American History 23, April Kets de Vries. Are Leaders Born or Made: The Case of Alexander the Great. New York: Karnac, Kotkin, Joel. Tribes: How Race, Religion, and Identity Determine Success in the New Global Economy. New York: Random House, Ludwig, Arnold M. King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, Olson, Steve. Mapping Human History: Discovering the Past Through Our Genes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,

5 Pessin, Andrew, The God Question. Oxford: One World Publications, Pinker, Steven, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. New York: Viking, Plutarch. Plutarch s Lives. Trans. John Dryden Ridley, Matt, The Agile Gene: How Nature Turns on Nurture. New York: Harper Perennial, Ridley, Matt. The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Penguin Books, Rose, Hilary and Rose, Steven, (eds.) Alas Poor Darwin: Arguments Against Evolutionary Psychology. London: Vintage, Sahlins, Marshall David, Stone Age Economics. Chicago, Aldine-Atherton, Schwartz, Barry. The Battle for Human Nature: Science, Morality, and Modern Life. New York: W.W. Norton, Singer, Peter. The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Translated by Robert Graves and Michael Grant. New York: Penguin Books, Tiger, Lionel, Fox, Robin, The Imperial Animal. New York: Hold, Rinehart and Winston, Trivers, Robert. Social Evolution. Menlo Park, CA: The Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company, Van Vugt, Mark, Johnson, Dominic D. P. & Kaiser, Robert B. Evolution and the Social Psychology of Leadership: The Mismatch Hypothesis. In Hoyt, Goethals and Forsyth Eds. Leadership at the Crossroads: Leadership and Psychology. Praeger, 2008, de Waal, Frans B. M. Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Wilson, James Q., The Moral Sense. New York: Free Press, Wright, Robert. The Moral animal: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology. New York: Pantheon Books,