Critical Theory Course Descriptions
Fall Quarter
Dept | Course No and Title | Instructor |
---|---|---|
HUMAN (F24) | 270 LAW IN THEORY | MOR, L |
The law is a key organizing principle of our social existence, whose meaning and inevitability are often taken for granted. But what is “law”? How and when did it come into being and in what contexts? Is the law universal or does it operate differentially? What is its relationship to violence and in what ways might it be generative? Do its modes of operation change in the age of algorithms and preemption? And are there other historical normative orders or conceivable social frameworks beyond the juridical? In considering these and related questions, this seminar will explore the ways in which “the juridical” structures not only what is commonly regarded as the political sphere—the state, sovereignty, international relations—but also many other, supposedly unrelated, spheres of life that shape the fundamental coordinates of subjectivity itself, such as signification, space-time, identity, and even humor. Looking at various geographic contexts and stressing the colonial legacies of the law, we will investigate principal juridico-political concepts, procedures, and institutions, such as the social contract, international law, human rights and weaponized humanitarianism, property law and liberal “possessive individualism,” the state of exception and the role of the juridical in imperial, colonial, and racializing projects. Readings may include works by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Sigmund Freud, Alenka ZupanÄiÄ, Saidiya Hartman, Samera Esmeir, Brenna Bhandar, Nasser Mufti, Timothy Mitchell, Eyal Weizman, Evgeny Pashukanis, Cedric Robinson, and Robert Knox. The final paper for this class will consist in a close, critical reading of a significant recent legal case of your choosing and its analysis in light of class readings and discussions. | ||
HUMAN (F24) | 260A CRIT THRY WORKSHOP | COLMENARES GON, D. |
No detailed description available. | ||
HUMAN (F24) | 270 DOCUMENT URBAN ECOL | PITT, J. |
This seminar focuses on Tokyo as a case study for ""urban ecology"" and examines various media forms that look to document the complex entanglements of Japan's metropolis. We will read works from infrastructure studies, architectural history, critical plant studies, and ecocriticism more broadly alongside works of modern and contemporary Japanese literature and cinema to question what kinds of emergent ecologies can be found among the rubble and ever-changing landscape of modern Tokyo. | ||
HUMAN (F24) | 270 ON RESISTANCE | EVERS, K. |
Recent theories of resistance direct their critique, even scorn, at Hannah Arendt’s concept of politics, foremost her analysis totalitarianism and theory of total domination (The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951). Judith Butler criticized Arendt for defining politics “restrictively as an active stance” arguing that such a narrow definition excludes central aspects of the political from the discussion, in particular passive forms of resistance. Howard Caygill and Iris Därmann hold Arendt’s theory of total domination responsible for past disinterest and current misconceptions of resistance. Butler, Caygill and Därmann, among others, advocate for more inclusive approaches to resistance. Resistance studies should develop concepts and theories that take serious forms of resistance which avoid open confrontation, that make efforts to sustain life (Butler), take measures to preserve the capacity to resist (Caygill), that pay attention to „flat“ forms of resistance, as Därmann calls them. The course examines central theoretical, literary and historical writings (and films) on resistance-- Clausewitz, Nietzsche, Freud, Ghandi, Arendt, Fanon, Pasolini, Weiss, among them. These readings will be engaged in critical dialogue with recent proposals to revise our definitions and practices of resistance (Caygill, Butler, Malm, Därmann, and others). | ||
HUMAN (F24) | 270 MULTIMODAL ANTHRO | VARZI, R. |
No detailed description available. | ||
HUMAN (F24) | 270 TOPC EPISTEMOLOGY | COLIVA, A. |
Will address topics such as 1. the rejection of individualistic epistemology; 2. The nature of common sense and common knowledge; 3. Testimony and trust; 4. Deep disagreements and the genealogical challenge to the good standing of our philosophical, moral and religious convictions; 5. ""I am a woman/man"" - how family resemblance, the first-personal authority of avowals and hinge epistemology can make sense of gender self-determination | ||
HUMAN (F24) | 398B FOR LANG TEACH METH | STAFF |
No detailed description available. | ||
HUMAN (F24) | 399 UNIVERSITY TEACHING | BEAUCHAMP, T. |
No detailed description available. | ||
HUMAN (F24) | 399 UNIVERSITY TEACHING | TORRES, J. |
No detailed description available. |