POLITICS, KNOWLEDGE, AND AESTHETICS:
                                 HISTORICAL DILEMMAS
 

Course Texts

Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings
S. Seidman, ed., Jurgen Habermas on Society and Politics (S)
Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings
P. Kamuf, ed., A Derrida Reader
P. Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader
D. Ingram and J. Simon-Ingram, eds., Critical Theory. The Essential  Readings (I)
 

Course Outline

Sept. 2 Seminar Introduction.  Aestheticized politics and the categorical distinctions of modern philosophy.  The Kantian background.  Philosophical themes:  experience, method, the subject;  life-world and the theme of historicity.  The historicity of philosophy and the problem of rationality.  Hegel vs. Nietzsche.

Sept. 9 Challenges to traditional philosophy.

  Heidegger, "Being and Time:  Introduction," pp. 37-89
  Horkheimer, from "Traditional and Critical Theory," pp. 239-54 (I)

Sept. 16 Contextualizing theory.

  Heidegger, "Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics," pp. 243-82
  Habermas, "Knowledge and Human Interests:  A General Perspective," pp. 255-67 (I)

Sept. 23 Language and rethinking philosophical reflection.

  Derrida, "from Speech and Phenomena," "from Of Grammatology," and "from 'Differance'," pp 6-79
  Foucault, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History," "What is an Author?" pp. 76-120

 
Sept. 30 Implications of the linguistic turn.

  Derrida, "from 'Plato's Pharmacy'," "from 'The Double Session'," and "Letter to a Japanese Friend," pp. 112-39, 172-99, and 269-76
  Habermas, "The Concept of the Lifeworld and the Hermeneutic Idealism of Interpretive Sociology," pp. 165-187 (S), from "An Alternative Way Out of the Philosophy of the Subject:  Communicative Vs. Subject-Centered Reason," pp. 273-81 (I)

Oct. 7 Practice and reason:  the question of technology.

  Heidegger, "The Question Concerning Technology," pp. 283-317
  Horkheimer, from "Means and Ends," pp. 35-49 (I)
  Adorno and Horkheimer, from "The Concept of Enlightenment," pp. 49-56 (I)

Oct. 14 Technology and criticism:  normative issues.

  Marcuse, "The Catastrophe of Liberation," pp. 103-16 (I)
  Habermas, "Technology and Science as 'Ideology'," "The Public Sphere," "The Uncoupling of System and Lifeworld," pp. 237-265, 231-236, and 188-228 (S)

Oct. 21 Ethics and truth.

  Marcuse, "On Hedonism," pp. 151-75 (I)
  Horkheimer, "Materialism and Morality," pp. 176-202 (I)

Oct. 28 Sensibility and truth:  the relation to aesthetic experience.

  Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art," pp. 143-87
  Derrida, from "Restitutions of the Truth in Pointing," pp. 277-309

Nov. 4 Sensibility and the formation of subjects.

  Marcuse, "Freedom and Freud's Theory of Instincts," pp. 221-38 (I)
  Adorno, "Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda," "How to Look at Television," pp. 69-102 (I)

Nov. 11 Subjects, knowledge, and power.

  Foucault, "Disciplines and Sciences of the Individual," "Bio-Power," pp. 169-289

Nov. 18 Subjects, knowledge and power, continued.

  Foucault, "Sex and Truth," "Practices and Sciences of The Self," "Polemics, Politics, and Problemizations:  An Interview with Michel Foucault," pp. 291-390;  "The Subject and Power," pp. 303-319 (I)

Nov. 25 Signifiers and simulation.

  Baudrillard,  "Consumer Society," "The Mirror of Production," "Simulacra and Simulations," "The Masses:  The Implosion of the Social in the Media," pp. 29-56, 98-118, 166-84, 207-19

Dec. 2 Criticism and Enlightenment.

  Foucault, "What is Enlightenment?" "Truth and Power," pp. 32-75
  Habermas, "Modernity:  An Unfinished Project," pp. 342-356 (I), and "The Tasks of a Critical Theory of Society," pp. 77-103 (S)

Dec. 9 Reflection, rationality, and aestheticized politics.

  Marcuse, "Philosophy and Critical Theory," pp. 5-19 (I)
  Adorno, "Why Philosophy?" pp, 20-30 (I)
 

Requirements   A seminar report on one of the shared readings, a short mid-term paper, and a term paper.  The report should be about four pages and be submitted in typed form on the day of the presentation.  Please provide a one page outline for all seminar members (I will duplicate it if you get it to me 24 hours in advance; otherwise you must provide enough copies for the group).  The mid-term paper, from four to six pages, should present and assess two contending views on some issue discussed in the seminar.  The term paper should present an argument about some theme from the seminar and it should reflect reading that goes beyond the assignments of the course.  A term paper proposal is due Nov. 18.  It is acceptable for your later writing to draw from thinking developed in the earlier assignments, though one should not simply incorporate the other.

Study questions will be distributed weekly.  Please think about these for seminar discussion.  If you would like to answer some in writing, I will be happy to read and comment upon them.  These questions should provide some suggestions for your mid-term and term papers as well.

A schedule for seminar reports will be developed early in the semester.  The mid-term paper is due Oct. 7.  The term paper is due no later than Friday, Dec. 18, by 12 noon in the Philosophy Department office, 503 S.Kedzie Hall.
 

Office Hours            Tuesdays and Thursdays 1 to 2:30, or by appointment
512 S. Kedzie Hall                    phone:  353-9378;  messages: 355-4490