Schedule of Winter Session 2009 Courses

K20.1544 Fanon and Revolutionary Existentialism Polyne MTWRF 12:30-2:30
K20.1545 On Freud's Couch Cornyetz MTWRF 3:00-5:00
K20.1546 The Politics of Aesthetics: Jacques Ranciere Duncombe MTWRF 10:00-12:00


Course Descriptions

Fanon and Revolutionary Existentialism
K20.1544   HUM, 2 CR    MTWRF 12:30-2:30 Polyne

This class examines Frantz Fanon's canonical text Wretched of the Earth and philosopher Lewis Gordon's short analysis of Fanon's ideas on race, colonialism and anticolonial struggle in Fanon and the Crisis of the European Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the Human Sciences.  An analysis of Fanon provides a theoretical introduction to students on Jean-Paul Sartre's notion of bad faith and weaves a discussion of existentialism, phenomenology, authenticity and tragedy into a discourse on racism and liberation within the colonial and neo-colonial context. We will view Isaac Julien's classic film on Fanon.

On Freud’s Couch: Psychoanalysis, Narrative, and Memory
K20.1545   SOC, 2 CR  MTWRF 3:00-5:00   Cornyetz

In this course we will read closely and thoroughly one of Sigmund Freud’s papers, “Screen Memories,” and two of his classic case histories: “Fragment of an Analysis of Hysteria,” (Dora) and “From the History of an Infantile Neurosis,” (the Wolfman). In general, we will focus on how the psychoanalytic method takes narrative seriously—that is, “at its word,” or literally—at the same time as it recognizes that whatever is articulated may be in a negative or  “canted” (in other words, “encoded”) relation to what it “means.” We will explore how time, memory and history signify in psychoanalytic frameworks, and ask what literature and poetics might share with psychoanalysis. Finally, we will debate the validity of what might be called Freud’s “reductionism” in relation to drive theory and the sexual instincts.

The Politics of Aesthetics: Jacques Ranciere
K20.1546    SOC, 2 CR   MTWRF 10:00-12:00 Duncombe

At a time when policy is often presented in a carefully crafted picture, ideology expressed in a well-turned phrase, and political aspirations are projected via spectacle, it is important to seriously interrogate the relationship between politics and aesthetics. The ideas of the French philosopher Jacques Rancière are uniquely valuable in this exploration, as he helps us think about the emancipatory power of the aesthetic to re-arrange our very way of understanding—and sensing —what is possible.  But, warns Rancière, art can also have the opposite function: reflecting the order as it is, excising disagreement, and thus banishing radical transformation to the realm of the insensible. Weaving together Ancient Greek and contemporary philosophy, Rancière is one of the most exciting, and demanding, thinkers exploring the intersection of politics and aesthetics writing today. In this intense, two-week seminar we will begin with his most accessible text, The Politics of Aesthetics, then travel back to his political masterwork, Disagreement, and then conclude with his latest book on The Future of the Image.