15211
Graduate Course
WiSe 16/17: On the changes in form of democracy
Christian Volk
Comments
The seminar will offer an overview of the most important thinkers within recent radical political philosophy –tinted with poststructuralism- that work on the notion of “emancipation”, “order” and “political subject”. The seminar poses the question: what is emancipation? Who emancipates from what and to what? Does emancipation have its Other, and what are its critics-discontent telling us? Doesn’t any emancipation bring forward new “order”, or simply reform the old? What is then the relationship between real transformation and repetition (Lacan)? Key debates in the French structuralism (Althusser, Lacan, Barthes) and post-structuralism (Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze) addressed the question of order-power-Other on the one hand, and emancipation-resistance-rupture on the other hand. This seminar shall trace some of the subsequent shifts in political philosophy that marked poststructuralist legacy: first, from Marx-ism to post-Marxist theory (Laclau/Mouffe, Badiou, Rancière); second, from thinking the politics as autonomous field (challenge of Schmitt, Arendt, Badiou) to heteronomic and intersectional thinking of the political (Butler, Federici, Balibar, Fraser, Fanon). The seminar will stage a critical dialogue between major “traditions” in current political philosophy and make clearly visible the contradictory positions and blind spots that they carry. The sessions that follow introductory lecture will focus on: concepts of emancipation, political subject-ivity, “order”, universality VS. particularity, individual VS. collective, etc. Students will expand especially the conceptual apparatus on the theories of emancipation (revolution/resistance), political subjectivity and develop critical argumentative skills. close
16 Class schedule
Regular appointments
Tue, 2016-10-18 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2016-10-25 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2016-11-01 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2016-11-08 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2016-11-15 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2016-11-22 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2016-11-29 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2016-12-06 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2016-12-13 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2017-01-03 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2017-01-10 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2017-01-17 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2017-01-24 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2017-01-31 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2017-02-07 12:00 - 14:00
Tue, 2017-02-14 12:00 - 14:00