GRADUATE SEMINAR IN POETICS AND THEORY

Sovereignty from Machiavelli to Hobbes: Shakespeare, Milton, same as English “Topics in Criticism”
G40.2002 (G41.2955)
Professor Anselm Haverkamp
W 3:30-5:30

The course is part of the requirements of the Advanced Certificate in Poetics and theory and serves as preparatory class for the yearly Poetics and Theory conference in April. The historical horizon of modern theories of sovereignty is defined by Machiavelli’s Prince and Hobbes’s Leviathan. In addition to these two canonical books, some work of recent theory is at least partially to be taken into account reaching from Benjamin, Schmitt, and Kantorowicz to Foucault, Agamben, and Legendre. The major emphasis is to be put on the historical dimension of sovereignty between the political theology of the Divine Right of Kings and the concepts of revolution. Historical work is to include Shakespeare’s Kings (Richard II, III, and Macbeth) and Milton’s political writing (including parts of Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes), as well as texts and aspects of contemporary juridical theory from Bracton to Selden, Bacon and James I.

Texts: Machiavelli, The Prince, ed. Skinner; Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Macpherson; Hobbes, Behemoth, ed. Tonnies; Shakespeare, Arden editions of Richard II, III, Macbeth. Milton, Complete Poems and Major Prose, ed. Hughes.

Theory: Benjamin, German Tragic Drama; Schmitt, Political Theology; Kantorowicz, The King's Two Bodies; Agamben, Homo Sacer; Legendre, Law and the Unconscious.

Secondary texts recommended: Kahn, Machiavellian Rhetoric; Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric in Hobbes.

NIETZSCHE = Philosophy “History of Philosophy: Selected Topics”
G40.2320 (G83.2320)
Prof. John Richardson
R 1:30-3:30
Philosophy Dept. seminar room, 503 Main Bldg

I expect to divide the course into 3 parts. 1) We’ll survey a series of topics in Nietzsche’s theory, ranging from his theory of truth (if any) and perspectivism, through his notions of will to power and eternal return, and into his critique of morality. Here we’ll use an anthology of (relatively) analytic articles, as well as selected and scattered excerpts from many of his books. (I’ll also introduce the reading of Nietzsche I gave in Nietzsche’s System). 2) We’ll read more closely and consecutively one or two of Nietzsche’s books, probably On the Genealogy of Morals and maybe Beyond Good and Evil. 3) I’ll present the reading of Nietzsche I’m working on now; this argues for an important Darwinian element in his thinking, which allows him/us to “naturalize” many of his ideas. Here we’ll use a typescript for a book tentatively titled Nietzsche’s New Darwinism.