The Modern Critical Theory Lecture Series - Fall 2013
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 except for the lecture on 9/24 which will be in Lincoln Hall 1002. The lectures are open to all interested graduate students.
All students should purchase Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Home (Kaufmann, trans) which contains readings necessary for the 9/24 lecture as well as Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle which contains readings necessary for the 10/15 lecture.
Week 1 (8/27): No Public Lecture
Week 2 (9/3): Kant and Aesthetic Theory
Lecture: Bruce Rosenstock, Religion/Jewish Studies, Illinois
Readings:
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment. (Selections in Second Edition Norton)
Week 3 (9/10): 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 (9/17): 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 (9/24): Nietzsche (Lincoln Hall 1002)
Lecture: Melissa Orlie, Political Science, Illinois
Readings:
I. The ascetic ideal and the problem of nihilism
*Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals. Trans. Kaufmann. Preface sections 1, 2, 7; Essay III, sections 1, 6, 12, 23-27.
---. Beyond Good and Evil. Preface and sections 1-5.
---. Twilight of the Idols. "The Problem of Socrates" sections 1, 2, 5, 6.
II. Nietzsche's general ontology of will to power as impersonal matter
Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals. Essay I, section 12.
---. On the Genealogy of Morals. Essay II, section 12.
---. Beyond Good and Evil. Sections 6, 9, 12, 13, 16-17, 19.
---. The Gay Science. Sections 276 and 334.
---. Twilight of the Idols. "The Four Great Errors," section 8.
*Please note: Students should purchase this edition, which is widely available in bookstores and online: Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo. Kaufmann, Walter (trans.).
Recommended for Future Reading:
III. The distinctness and interplay of life hating and life affirming will to power
On reactive will to power:
Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals. Preface, Sections 3-6.
---. On the Genealogy of Morals. Essay I, sections 2, 4, 6-7, 10, 11, 16.
---. On the Genealogy of Morals. Essay II, sections 10, 11, 14, 16-18, 22, 23.
On affirmative will to power:
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. Preface and sections 32, 36, 39, 117, 200, 225, 295.
---. On the Genealogy of Morals. Essay II, section 24.
---. On the Genealogy of Morals. Essay III, section 12.
---. Twilight of the Idols. "What the Germans Lack" section 6.
Week 6 (10/1): Structuralism
Lecture: Robert Dale Parker, English/American Indian Studies, Illinois
Readings:
de Saussure, Ferdinand. "Course in General Linguistics" (1916). Critical Theory: A Reader for Literary and Cultural Studies. Oxford, 2012. 37-48.
*Parker, Robert Dale. "Ch.3: Structuralism". How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies, Second Edition (2011). 44-85.
Also Recommended:
Barthes, Roland. "The Death of the Author" (1968). Critical Theory: A Reader for Literary and Cultural Studies. Oxford, 2012. 83-87.
Jakobson, Roman. "The Metaphoric and Metonymic Poles" (1956). Critical Theory: A Reader for Literary and Cultural Studies. Oxford, 2012. 62-68.
Propp, Vladimir. "The Morphology of the Folktale" (1928). Critical Theory: A Reader for Literary and Cultural Studies. Oxford, 2012. 58-62.
Week 7 (10/8): Derrida
Lecture: Marcus Keller, French, 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 8 (10/15): Freud
Lecture: Lilya Kaganovsky, Slavic/Comparative Literature/Media and Cinema Studies, Illinois Readings:
Freud, Sigmund. Beyond the Pleasure Principle (The Standard Edition). WW Norton, 1990.
Also Recommended:
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. Freud, Sigmund. "Analysis of a Specimen Dream." The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Hogarth, 1953. 106-121.
Week 9 (10/22): 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 (10/29): Foucault
Lecture: Lauren Goodlad, English/Unit for Criticism, Illinois
Readings:
Foucault, Michel. (Introduction and all selections in Norton)
Foucault, Michel. Society Must Be Defended, Lectures at the Collège de France 1975-1976: Picador, 2003.
--Ch. 11: 17 March 1976
Optional:
Foucault, Michel. "The Subject and Power," in Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. University of Chicago 1983, pp. 208-228.
Week 11 (11/5): Postcolonial Theory
Lecture: Jim Hansen, English, Illinois
Readings:
Fanon, Frantz. "The Negro and Recognition," from Black Skin, White Masks.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. “Critical Fanonism.” Critical Inquiry 17.3, 1991.
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.
Week 12 (11/12): Queer Theory
Lecture: Martin Manalansan, Anthropology, Illinois
Readings:
Butler, Judith. "Imitation and Gender Insubordination."
Cohen, Cathy. "Punks, Bulldagger, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?" GLQ 3:437-485.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. "Introduction: Axiomatic." Epistemology of the Closet. 1-67.
Foucault, Michel. "Part 1: We 'Other Victorians.'" The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. Vintage Books, 1990. 1-13.
Foucault, Michel. "Part 2, Ch. 1: The Incitement to Discourse." The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. Vintage Books, 1990. 17-35.
Recommended:
Warner, Michael. "Introduction." Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory. (vii-xxxi).
Newton, Esther. "Ch. 5: Role Models." Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America. 97-111.
Rubin, Gayle. "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of th Politics of Sexuality."
Week 13 (11/19): Feminist Theory
Lecture: Talia Schaffer (Visiting Lecturer), CUNY
Readings:
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own, Chapters 1 & 2 (1929).
Lorde, Audre, The Master's Tools will Never Dismantle the Master's House," from Sister, Outsider (1984).
Spivak, Gayatri, "Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism" (1985).
Rubin, Gayle, "Traffic in Women" (1975).
Gilbert, Sandra; Gubar, Susan. "The Queen's Looking Glass: Female Creativity, Male Images of Women and the Metaphor of Literary Paternity." The Madwoman in the Attic. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979. 3-44.