This course has the following main aims. It introduces key ideas from some of the leading political philosophical traditions such as: social contract tradition, liberalism, republicanism, socialism/Marxism and critical theory. It considers the role of gender and sexuality in these traditions. A historical focus is given to major texts by past women philosophers and political theorists from the 18th to the 20th C, whose reflections on sex, gender and women's rights are also considered classics of political philosophy: this section includes writings by Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill, Harriet Taylor, Simone de Beauvoir, and Carole Pateman. A fourth focal point of the course asks how equal rights claims were historically formulated by "those who had no rights". Here students draw on their own critical resources to assess the rhetorical and philosophical strategies of some of the most famous rights claims. Critical focus is given, for example, to the tradition of using analogy to justify rights claims. Thus students will have the opportunity to critical evaluate rights claims based on analogies to animals, slavery, children, and to consider possible alternatives. Texts by white feminists who compared their condition to slavery are discussed in tandem with texts by philosophers of color who have challenged such analogies. A further section of the course which gives a focus to paradoxes and inconsistencies which have arisen in the history of rights claims discourse allows student to develop their skills in textual interpretation. A comparative approach is also taken to different rights claims. The class asks: What are the most imperative rights claims formulated by those who had no rights? What should those who seek equal rights actually claim? How has the perception of these imperatives transformed over time? How do the intersecting perspectives of gender, sexuality, race, and class change these imperatives? Finally, the course also gives attention to the role of gender and sexuality in contemporary political theory, focusing on debates about justice and the family, pornography, prostitution, surrogacy contracts, the 'politics of the veil' in the public sphere, multiculturalism, and challenges from contemporary theorists whose work is based in the resources of intersectionality theory, critical race theory, and queer theory. A final section on contemporary debates and figures in feminist political philosophy, includes excepts by contemporary philosophers and political thinkers such as Susan Moller Okin, Carole Pateman, Joan Scott and Judith Butler.
COMP_LIT 412 Literary Studies Colloquium: Agamben's Thought in Context: Between Philosophy and Literature
This course provides an introduction to the philosophy of Giorgio Agamben, particularly the texts that he includes within the Homo Sacer cycle. The first part of the course examines the genealogy and influence of the pivotal concepts that he espouses such as homo sacer, bare life, and the state of exception. These notions have generated both vital interest and vehement controversies that seem likely to endure for quite some time. Through such questions, we examine the advantages and limits of Agamben’s thought for contemporary discussions of biopolitics, political philosophy, the Shoah, and postcolonial studies. The second part of the course is dedicated to exploring Agamben’s encounters with figures such as Levi, Melville, and Kafka. We ask whether his literary readings paradoxically offer a more productive philosophical horizon than does the rest of his thought.
Over the course of the term, we will cover texts by Agamben, Foucault, Deleuze, Schmitt, Benjamin, Butler, Levi, Kafka, and Melville.
COMP_LIT 481 Problems in Ethics & Aesthetics, or What We Talk About When We Talk About Form
What does literary and/or aesthetic form do, and what is the relationship – if any – between form and ethical value? What is the critic’s proper relation to the text or artwork? What does it mean to read – much less, to read professionally? This seminar will consider the history as well as the present of such questions through a broad overview of representative texts on ethics and aesthetics from Lessing to the present day, with a particular emphasis on contemporary theoretical paradigms and debates. Parallel to the course readings, students will get training in skills necessary to graduate- and professional-level academic work, including the preparation and workshopping of a paper, ideally for publication.
