The Modern Critical Theory Lecture Series - Fall 2012
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 1092 Lincoln Hall. The lectures are open to all interested graduate students.
Week 1 (8/28): No Public Lecture.
Week 2 (9/4): Kant and Aesthetic Theory
Lecture: Bruce Rosenstock, Religion/Jewish Studies, Illinois
Readings:
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment. (Selections in Second Edition Norton)
Week 3 (9/11): Hegel
Lecture: William Schroeder, Philosophy, Illinois
Readings:
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.
Schroeder, William. "Hegel." Continental Philosophy: A Critical Approach. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005. 30-59.
Week 4 (9/18): Marx and Marxism
Lecture: Emanuel Rota, Spanish/Italian/Portuguese, Illinois
Readings:
Gramsci, Antonio. “Our Marx,” Antonio Gramsci: Pre-Prison Writings. Eds. Virgina Cox and Richard Paul Bellamy. Cambridge, 54-59.
Marx, Karl. “Fragment on Machines,” Grundrisse.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (selections in Norton)
Week 5 (9/25): Nietzsche
Lecture: Melissa Orlie, Political Science, Illinois
Readings:
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Preface, On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo. Kaufmann, Walter (trans.).
Orlie, Melissa A. "Impersonal Matter." New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics. Diana Coole and Samantha Frost, eds. Duke, 2010. 116-130.
Week 6 (10/2): Structuralism
Lecture: Robert Dale Parker, English/American Indian Studies, Illinois
Readings:
Ferdinand de Saussure (selections in Norton)
Jakobson, Roman. "The Metaphoric and Metonymic Poles" (Norton)
Parker, Robert Dale. "Ch.3: Structuralism". How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies (2011)
Also Recommended:
Jakobson, Roman. “Linguistics and Poetics.” Style in Language p353-359
Hall, Stuart. “Encoding/Decoding”
Week 7 (10/9): Freud
Lecture: Rob Rushing, Italian/Comparative Literature/Cinema Studies, Illinois
Readings:
Freud, Sigmund. "From The Interpretation of Dreams." Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. WW Norton, 2001. 919-929.
Freud, Sigmund. "Fetishism." Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. WW Norton, 2001. 952-956.
Freud, Sigmund. "Negation." The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Hogarth, 1953. 231-239.
Freud, Sigmund. "Some Psychological Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction Between the Sexes." The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Hogarth, 1953. 248-258.
Freud, Sigmund. "The Uncanny." Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. WW Norton, 2001. 929-952.
Also Recommended:
Freud, Sigmund. "Analysis of a Specimen Dream." The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Hogarth, 1953. 106-121.
Week 8 (10/16): Derrida
Lecture: Michael Rothberg, English/Holocaust, Genocide & Memory Studies, Illinois
Readings:
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.
Derrida, Jacques. "Signature Event Context." Limited Inc. Northwestern University Press, 1977. 2-23.
Derrida, Jacques. "From Specters of Marx." Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. WW Norton, 2010. 1734-1744.
Week 9 (10/23): Lacan and Zizek
Lecture: Rob Rushing, Italian/Comparative Literature/Cinema Studies, Illinois
Readings:
Lacan, Jacques. "The Mirror Stage", "The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious" (Norton)
Zizek, Slavoj. "Courtly Love, or Woman as Thing," The Metastases of Enjoyment (89-112)
Week 10 (10/30): Foucault
Lecture: Lauren Goodlad, English/Unit for Criticism, Illinois
Readings:
Michel Foucault (Introduction and all selections in Norton)
Michel Foucault. Society Must Be Defended, Lectures at the Collège de France 1975-1976: Picador, 2003.
--Ch. 11: 17 March 1976 (1st excerpt)
--Ch. 11: 17 March 1976 (2nd excerpt)
Optional:
Foucault, Michel. "The Subject and Power," in Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. University of Chicago 1983, pp. 208-228.
Week 11 (11/6): Feminism
Lecture: Kevin Mulhearn, Art & Design, Illinois
Readings:
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, Chapters 1 & 2 (1929)
Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” from Sister Outsider (1984)
Gayatri Spivak, “Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism” (1985)
Pollock, Griselda. “Ch. 1: Feminist interventions in the history of art: an introduction.” Vision and Difference: Femininity, feminism and histories of art. Routledge, 1988. 1-17; notes.
Pollock, Griselda. “Ch. 2: Vision, voice and power: feminist art histories and Marxism.” Vision and Difference: Femininity, feminism and histories of art. Routledge, 1988. 18-49; notes.
Judith Butler, “Critically Queer” (1993)
Week 12 (11/13): Queer Theory
Lecture: Tim Dean, University of Buffalo
Readings:
Gayle Rubin, "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality"
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.
Leo Bersani, "Is the Rectum a Grave?" (October 43: 197-222)
Judith Butler, "Imitation and Gender Insubordination." Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories. Ed. Diana Fuss. Routledge, 1991. 13-31
Recommended:
Cathy Cohen, "Punks, Bulldagger, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?" (GLQ 3: 437-485)
Michael Warner, "Introduction" in Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory (vii-xxxi)
Week 13 (11/27): Postcolonial Theory
Lecture: Manisha Basu, English/African Studies, Illinois
Readings:
Chaturvedi, Vinayak. “Introduction.” Mapping Subaltern Studies and the Postcolonial pp. vii-xix.
Fanon, Frantz. "The Negro and Recognition," from Black Skin, White Masks
Pandey, Gyanendra. “Voices from the Edge: The Struggle to Write Subaltern Histories” from Mapping Subaltern Studies and the Postcolonial. pp. 281-299.
Said, Edward. Introduction to Orientalism (Norton)
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Preface to Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
Spivak, Gayatri. "Literature" from Critique of Postcolonial Reason. pp. 112-140
Optional:
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. “Radical Histories and Question of Enlightenment Rationalism: Some Recent Critiques of Subalternity” from Mapping Subaltern Studies and the Postcolonial. pp 256-280.