32217
Advanced graduate seminar
SoSe 16: Enlightenment Trajectories: Continuities and Ruptures
Christian Lammert, Florian Sedlmeier
Comments
In this interdisciplinary seminar we will read political philosophy and literary writings from two different historical moments, around 1800 and the contemporary, here broadly understood as the period after World War II onto the present. In a first step, we will read some of the canonical authors of European political philosophy and discuss how their ideas resonate with political writers in the colonial Early Republic. In a second step, students will explore the contemporary continuities and ruptures against the backdrop of the end of historical colonialism, and unravel their transformations in the wake of genocides, post- and neocolonial conditions, and the neoliberal rationale. The seminar will examine if and to what extent American literary texts might provide a privileged space for probing and reimagining these legacies. Probing the trajectories of the Enlightenment means not the least to discuss political and literary figures such as the immigrant, the refugee, or the slave. Students will become acquainted with central concepts of political philosophy, such as sovereignty and the social contract, but they will also engage in an interdisciplinary exercise that seeks to assess the link between politics and literature by confronting political philosophy with literary imagination and vice versa. For an active participation credit you will be asked to participate in an expert/presentation group; requirements for a full graded Schein will be announced in the first session. close
13 Class schedule
Regular appointments
Thu, 2016-04-21 18:00 - 19:00
Thu, 2016-04-28 18:00 - 19:00
Thu, 2016-05-12 18:00 - 19:00
Thu, 2016-05-19 18:00 - 19:00
Thu, 2016-05-26 18:00 - 19:00
Thu, 2016-06-02 18:00 - 19:00
Thu, 2016-06-09 18:00 - 19:00
Thu, 2016-06-16 18:00 - 19:00
Thu, 2016-06-23 18:00 - 19:00
Thu, 2016-06-30 18:00 - 19:00
Thu, 2016-07-07 18:00 - 19:00
Thu, 2016-07-14 18:00 - 19:00
Thu, 2016-07-21 18:00 - 19:00