Civic, Liberal, and Global Education Stanford Introductory Studies
Stanford Introductory Studies

Citizenship in the 21st Century

Who is (or ought to be) included in citizenship? Who gets to decide? What responsibilities come with citizenship? Is citizenship analogous to being a friend, a family member, a business partner?

Students have class outside

What makes this course unique

This seminar will address both the historical roots as well as the future of citizenship, especially as it comes under stress from populism, authoritarianism, climate change, and other challenges. Starting with Stanford’s fundamental standard, we ask how citizenship in a community needs to be constantly redefined and reinvigorated for each new era.

Course Description

Citizenship is not just what passport you hold or where you were born. Citizenship also means equal membership in a self-governing political community. We will explore some of the many debates about this ideal. How have people excluded from citizenship fought for, and sometimes won, inclusion? These debates have a long history, featuring in some of the earliest recorded philosophy and literature but also animating current political debates in the United States and elsewhere. This course satisfies the Ethical Reasoning or Social Inquiry Way (ER or SI).

Inside the Citizenship Seminar

Special Events

Democracy Plenary: early in the quarter, expect an evening session bringing speakers from outside Stanford to grapple with the challenges to democracy today.

Three Books Series: each quarter, COLLEGE hosts a Three Books event, bringing an external speaker and providing students with a free copy of the book. 

In Citizenship in the 21st Century, you will read texts including

  • Plato’s Crito (c. 399 BCE)
  • Seneca Falls Convention Declaration of Sentiments (1848)
  • Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (1963)
  • Ken Liu's short story “Mono No Aware” (2013)

Details

COLLEGE 102: Citizenship in the 21st Century is 3 units and meets 2x/week for 80 minutes. It satisfies Way-ER or Way-SI. See ExploreCourses for detailed schedule offerings (updated each year in mid-autumn quarter).

Who's Teaching You?

In addition to all of our COLLEGE Lecturers, many faculty and affiliates from around the university will offer a Citizenship in the 21st Century seminar (instructor listing is updated annually in mid-August).

  • Brian T. Bateman

    John Bunker, MD, Professor and Professor, by courtesy, of Epidemiology and Population Health

  • Paul Brest

    Professor of Law, Emeritus and Director of the Stanford Law and Policy Lab

  • Persis S. Drell

    Provost, Emerita, James and Anna Marie Spilker Professor, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and of Physics

  • Pamela Karlan

    Kenneth & Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law

  • Neil Malhotra

    Edith M. Cornell Business Professor and Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science

  • Lloyd B. Minor, MD

    The Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Dean of the School of Medicine, Vice President for Medical Affairs, Stanford University, Professor of Otolaryngology –– Head and Neck Surgery and Professor of Neurobiology and of Bioengineering, by courtesy

  • Thomas Schnaubelt

    Executive Director for the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions

  • Dustin Schroeder

    Professor of Geophysics, of Electrical Engineering and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment

  • Paula V. Welander

    Senior Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Earth System Science

  • Keith Winstein

    Associate Professor of Computer Science and, by courtesy, of Electrical Engineering