The seminar examines the conceptual trajectory in modern political thought of the Greek concept of tyranny and the Roman institution of dictatorship. We will treat them as central yet evolving borderline concepts through which we can explore and interrogate the themes of emergency rule, state of exception, and more generally the relationship between power, politics, law, and violence. The seminar also focuses on the overlapping and intersecting encounters between the figures of the tyrant and the dictator and explore the normative, descriptive, and analytical implications resulting from their fusion. Similarly, we will investigate various attempts to differentiate them and scrutinize the underlying political reasons for doing so. In addition, the seminar seeks to address the antagonistic relationship between democracy and republicanism by looking at their divergent understandings of tyranny and dictatorship as they have been construed discursively and historically by these two political traditions. Finally, we will probe into how the two concepts inform modern theories of sovereignty, legitimacy, legality, obedience, and resistance. The readings will include selections from primary courses from Salutati, Bartolus, Machiavelli, the Monarchomachs, Althusius, Bodin, Grotius, Hobbes, Harrington, Sydney, Filmer, Pufendorf, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Hamilton, Jefferson, Cortés, Marx, Lenin, and Schmitt.