The Modern Critical Theory Lecture Series - Fall 2008

Once again the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory will be offering semi-formal public lectures for graduate students on the history of critical theory. These lectures, each of which will be followed by open discussion, will take place on Tuesdays from 7:30-9:00 pm in English 160. The lectures are open to all interested graduate students.

Many of the readings can be found in the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism (2001) .

 

Week 1 - No Public Lecture.

 

Week 2 (9/2): Kant and Aesthetic Theory

Lecture: Laurie Johnson, German, U Illinois

Readings:

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason, trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood, "'B' Introduction"

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment (Introduction, Parts I-IV)

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment (selections in Norton)

Burke, Edmund. "Of the Passion Caused by the Sublime"

Recommended: Frederick Beiser, "The Enlightenment and Idealism," from Cambridge Companion to German Idealism

 

Week 3 (9/9): Hegel

Lecture: William Schroeder, Philosophy, U Illinois

Readings:

Hegel, G.W.F.. "Consciousness." Phenomenology of Spirit. Clarendon Press, 1977. 58-67.

Hegel, G.W.F.. "Introduction." Phenomenology of Spirit. Clarendon Press, 1977. 46-57.

Hegel, G.W.F.. "Self-Consciousness." Phenomenology of Spirit. Clarendon Press, 1977. 104-119.

 

Week 4 (9/16): Marx and Marxism

Lecture: Jim Hansen, English, U Illinois

Readings:

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (selections in Norton)

Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (Norton)

Theodor W. Adorno, "On the Fetish Character of Music and the Regression of Listening"

 

Week 5 (THURS 9/25): Freud

Lecture: Bernhard Reginster, Philosophy, Brown U

Readings:

Freud, Sigmund. "On Narcissism: An Introduction" (1914)

Freud, Sigmund. "Mourning and Melancholia" (1917)

Freud, Sigmund. "Ch. 3: The ego and the super-ego (ego ideal)." The Ego and the Id. Norton, 1962. 18-29.

Freud, Sigmund. "Ch. 5: The dependent relationships of the ego." The Ego and the Id. Norton, 1962. 38-49.

Freud, Sigmund. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1922), chapter VII  

Freud, Sigmund. "Ch. VIII." Civilization and its Discontents. Strachey, James (ed./trans.). W.W. Norton, 1961. 81-92.

Freud, Sigmund. "Ch. VII." Civilization and its Discontents. Strachey, James (ed./trans.). W.W. Norton, 1961. 70-80.

 

Week 6 (9/30): Nietzsche

Lecture: Melissa Orlie, Political Science, U Illinois

Readings:

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. Kaufmann, Walter (trans.). various.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. "First Essay: "Good and Evil," "Good and Bad"." The Genealogy of Morals. Samuel, Horace B. (trans.). Boni and Liveright, 1918. 1-39.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. "Preface." The Genealogy of Morals. Samuel, Horace B. (trans.). Boni and Liveright, 1918. i-xii.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. "Second Essay: "Guilt," "Bad Conscience," and the Like." The Genealogy of Morals. Samuel, Horace B. (trans.). Boni and Liveright, 1918. 40-93.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. "On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense." (Norton)

 

Week 7 (10/7): Structuralism

Lecture: Bob Parker, English, U Illinois

Readings:

All Saussure in Norton.

Barthes, "The Death of the Author." (Norton).

Parker, Robert Dale, "Structuralism" (pp. 40-76 in How To Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies, 2008)

Hall, Stuart, "Encoding and Decoding" (1973, 1980)

 

Week 8 (10/14): Lacan, Althusser, Zizek

Lecture: Rob Rushing, Comparative Literature and Italian, U Illinois

Readings:

Lacan, Jacques."The Mirror Stage," "The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious" (Norton)

Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" (Norton)

Zizek, Slavoj. "Courtly Love, or Woman as Thing," The Metastases of Enjoyment (89-112)

Zizek, Slavoj. "How Did Marx Invent the Symptom?" The Sublime Object of Ideology (11-53)

 

Week 9 (10/18): Derrida

Lecture: Patrick Bray, French, U Illinois

Readings:

Derrida, Jacques. "Ch. 2: Cogito and the History of Madness (with notes)." Writing and Difference. Routledge, 2001. 36-76, 389-395.

Derrida, Jacques. "Ch. 7: Freud and the Scene of Writing (with notes)." Writing and Difference. Routledge, 2001. 246-291, 426-430.

Derrida, Jacques. "Ch. 10: Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences (with notes)." Writing and Difference. Routledge, 2001. 351-370, 443-444.

 

Week 10 (10/28): Foucault

Lecture: Lauren Goodlad, English, U Illinois

Readings:

Introduction to Michel Foucault and all Foucault selections in Norton (pp. 1615-1669)

"The Subject and Power," in Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (University of Chicago 1983, pp. 208-228)

"Politics and Reason," in Michel Foucault: Politics, Philosophy, Culture (Routledge 1988, pp. 57-85)

 

Week 11 (11/4): Feminism

Lecture: Sarah Projansky, Cinema Studies and Gender and Women's Studies, UIllinois

Readings:

Collins, Patricia Hill. "Ch. 6: Some Group Matters: Intersectionality, Situated Standpoints, and Black Feminist Thought." Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice

Fausto-Sterling, Anne. "Ch. 9: Gender systems: toward a theory of human sexuality." Sexing the body: gender politics and the construction of sexuality

Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema"

Shohat, Ella. "Gendered Cartographies of Knowledge: Area Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Postcolonial Studies." Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices

 

Week 12 (11/11): Queer Theory

Lecture: Martin Manalansan, Anthropology and Asian American Studies, U Illinois

Readings:

Judith Butler, "Imitation and Gender Insubordination"

Cathy Cohen, "Punks, Bulldagger, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?" (GLQ 3: 437-485)

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, "Introduction: Axiomatic," Epistemology of the Closet (1-67)

Foucault, Michel. "Part 1: We "Other Victorians"." The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction. Vintage Books, 1990. 1-13.

Foucault, Michel. "Part 2, Ch. 1: The Incitement to Discourse." The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction. Vintage Books, 1990. 17-35.

Recommended Readings:

Michael Warner, "Introduction" in Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory (vii-xxxi) Recommended: John D'Emilio, "Capitalism and Gay Identity"

Esther Newton, Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America (Chapter 5, "Role Models," 97-111) Gayle Rubin, "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality"

 

Week 13 (11/18): Postcolonial Theory

Lecture: Wail Hassan, Comparative and World Literature, Illinois

Readings:

Edward Said, "Introduction" to Orientalism (Norton)

Gayatri Spivak, from Critique of Postcolonial Reason (pp. 112-140)

Homi Bhabha, "Of Mimicry and Man" from The Location of Culture