German Studies 294
Humanities-Cultural Studies 110
A.
Kiarina
Kordela
Office Hours: M-W-F, 3:30-4:30,
and by appointment (HUM 208)
Email: kordela@macalester.edu,
Tel. x6524, home: (651) 644-9140
German Studies Topics
and
HCS Introduction:
Spring
2004, M—W—F, 2:20-3:20, HUM
215/HUM 401 (first class will be held in HUM 401)
Course Description.
Meant as both a topics
course and an intro to cultural studies, this course requires absolutely no
pre-knowledge on philosophy, critical theory or film theory, while being very
rigorous and demanding. As such, this course requires instead a high motivation
in learning and understanding—from the multiple perspective of both
intellectual history and cultural studies, which foregrounds the ideological,
social, and political function of concepts and other cultural artifacts—some
of the central tenants of thought since the advent of modern secular capitalism
in the seventeenth century, which continue to inform contemporary thought
and culture. The course will introduce students to (or further their existing
knowledge in) central theories (including philosophy, critical theory, literary
theory, theory of ideology, film theory, and issues of otherness, whether
racial or sexual) and methodologies involved in the analysis of theory itself,
literature, and film, without the knowledge of which one cannot function as
an informed, critical subject.
On a first level, the
course is divided in four sections, corresponding to the names: Descartes,
Kant, Hegel, and Marx. These thinkers will be addressed in chronological order
but simultaneously with contemporary commentaries and revisions of their work.
On a second level, these four sections are supplemented by film and literary
analysis.
READ THE COURSE GOALS, REQUIREMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS
CAREFULLY!
Course Goals, Requirements,
And Suggestions How to Meet Them
In
this course intends to cultivate the following abilities and skills:
B.
Critical
examination of the presuppositions/preconditions of the discourse/text
(epistemology)
1.
Critical
examination of the conditions and the mode of the discourse/text (methodology
and rhetoric)
1.
Analytic
ability (to identify the same concept or logical structure in different
texts/discourses) and synthetic ability (to combine different concepts and
structures towards a further argument)
2.
Overcome
intimidation by so-called difficult texts and theories
·
Critical reading
of texts and ability to reconstruct their arguments in class
1.
Critical and
productive dialogue on the texts
·
Comprehension and
active use of different academic ‘languages.’
Competent
academic writing.
Reading
Assignments: In this course we do
not read in order to memorize but to learn how to think critically about the texts we are reading. This does not mean that there are no
concepts that we have to learn ‘by heart,’ so to speak, but that it
is not worth learning them unless we really understand what they mean, how they
have become possible, and perhaps necessary, what other concepts they cause as
their effect, and how and with what consequences we can use them actively in
our language.
·
Basic Step
towards improving intellectual competence and critical ability: When you read, two things are imperative so that
you gain something out of your reading: 1. Check unknown words in a
dictionary, such as Webster’s
Collegiate Dictionary. 2. Check the argument of the text in terms of its
logical consistency and coherence.
If you do not follow the line of the argument—how, for example, the
author proceeds from one sentence to another, linking two subjects that seem to
you irrelevant—then, do not buy it! Either the argument is more sophisticated
than you and, hence, you need to study, discuss, and analyze it in order to
understand it, or the author is ‘cheating.’ Remember: Not
everything printed is of true value but, on the other hand, not everything you do not understand is
necessarily nonsense. You will have learned something by the end of the
semester if you are able to tell which of the two is the case.
·
Rule of Thumb: You know that you have understood a text when you
can ‘translate’ its, concepts, logic, thesis and/or arguments into your
own everyday life.
·
Use the Syllabus
as a Guideline in Your Reading: The
syllabus is divided in “Thematic Units,” and these are often
divided into subunits. The emphasis in the assigned reading and the direction
of the class discussions is, particularly in the first part of the semester,
also indicated by a set of
citations from the assigned reading or by key terms. These “Conceptual
Units” and citations help you identify connections between the
assigned texts and invite you to focus
on specific concepts and lines of thought.
Oral/Aural
and Written Requirements:
·
3x5" Index
Cards: You must submit them at the beginning of each session (without my asking or reminding you). On these cards you will write: 1. Your name and
the date. 2. At least one statement that expresses what, in your opinion, is the
most important concept, issue, conclusion, concern, or logical structure in the
reading assigned for that day. In
this way, you also indicate a direction for discussion. Do not write on your
index card questions on the reading!
Such questions you should bring up in the class to be discussed. 3. You may
also write your comments and suggestions about the way the class is/should be
conducted.
·
Midterm Exam: Open-book exam on critical, analytical, and
synthetic skills. You will receive a variety of questions from which you will
select three to respond to. The exam will last two hours (F, 11. 2,
3:30-5:30).
·
Final Test (OR,
Final Paper): Same format as
above.
·
Final Paper (OR,
Final Test): 5-10
double-spaced pages, on a subject
chosen by you in consultation with me, due: M, 12. 3, if you want to receive
feedback from me and revise it, or due: F, 12. 14, with no chance to revise it.
If you decide to revise your
final paper, the revised version will be due on F, 12. 14.
In preparation for the paper,
after you have formed an idea of a paper topic and an argument, you may want to
meet me individually to discuss it;
if so, arrange a meeting with me after M, 11. 12. You all must write first an outline (due on
W, 11. 21, if you plan to turn in your final paper by M, 12. 3, or on F, 11.
30, if you plan to turn it in by F, 12. 14), on which I will give you feedback, and then you will write your
final paper.
·
Attendance and
Participation in Class Discussion (More
than three absences can result in a lower grade). Your participation in critical and productive
dialogue reflects and refines not only your ability to read and view
critically texts but also:
a) Your ability to be an active listener (listen and respond also to other students, ask them questions, etc.). Due to the specific
material we are dealing with, I will have to lecture a lot, but you should feel
free to interrupt and comment or ask questions at any time!!
b) Asking about words, concepts or arguments that are mentioned by others and you do not
understand. Do so even if you
have the impression that you are the only one who does not understand only because nobody else asks questions.
Most likely this is a wrong impression, and everybody else is in the same
situation to one extent or other.
·
Optional: Oral
Presentation: You may make an
oral presentation of the arguments of the assigned texts, their relations to
other texts, and your comments on them. With this activity, you can improve
your grade, but, above all, it is
a very good exercise, particularly for those who plan to continue with graduate
studies. You should have decided whether you want to give an oral presentation by
W, 9. 19.
ATTENTION!!:
In Case of Absence: If you miss a
class, contact another student
from this seminar to find out what we discussed on the day you missed and what I said about the
reading assigned for the next time. When you show up on the next class day, you should have read
the texts assigned for both, the day you missed and the day you are present. The course forms a thematic whole. Omission of some of the assigned texts and class
discussions prevents you from
following this thematic whole.
Office
Hours: If in intellectual trouble
or simply in need of ‘boosting transference,’ make use of my office
hours (M-W-F, 1:15-2:10). (If you do not find
me in my office during these hours, most likely I am outside one of the two
entrances to the Humanities building.) But, feel also free to arrange a meeting at another hour, if these
hours are not convenient for you. When you meet me, we may discuss also other
aspects of the course and your relation to it. For instance, you may indicate
to me your particular interests, or comment on the quality of our performances,
and we can exchange suggestions for further improvement on both sides.
Communal
Learning and Mutual Evaluation and Criticism: In this course we will constantly judge, evaluate,
and learn from each other’s work. Everything we say or write during this
course is not private property but public, available for any one to use
productively. Your comments on the index cards or other written responses may
be read also by your peers. They may comment on them and draw on them for their
own writing. My comments on your writing will always be critical, trying to
improve it even if it is already on a very competent level. There is no limit
to good writing: we can always write better, and the better we write the more
aware we are of how difficult it is. Similarly, there is no limit to good
teaching. I encourage you to offer, and would honestly appreciate, any kind of
criticism, including my approach to the texts, your writing, and our
interaction in class. One of our further tasks in this course is to learn how
to offer constructive and non-offensive feedback.
ALWAYS READ THE SYLLABUS CAREFULLY FOR ASSIGNED READINGS AND WRITINGS! I WILL MAKE SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THEM ONLY IN ORDER TO MAKE
CHANGES. OTHERWISE THE ASSIGNMENTS AS SPECIFIED ON THE SYLLABUS ARE TAKEN
FOR GRANTED.
Abbreviations and Symbols used in the “Daily Syllabus”
HW: Homework
M, Jan. 26. Introduction.
HW: René
Descartes: Meditations on the First Philosophy in which the Existence of God
and the Real Distinction Between the Soul and the Body of Man Are Demonstrated (1641), the first three meditations, 94-131.
(Xerox).
W, Jan. 28. God qua genius malignus, the 'I' qua res cogitans, cogito, of the existence of God.
HW. Georges Van Den
Abbeele: "Cartesian Coordinates." [Travel as Metaphor: from
Montaigne to Rousseau, 39-61.] (On electronic reserve).
HW. André Bazin:
"The Evolution of the Language of Cinema." [Film Theory and
Criticism: Introductory Readings,
43-56.] (Xerox).
Find two scenes in two
different films (or two sets of two scenes that you compare) that exemplify
Bazin's points.
F, Jan. 30. The Cartesian rhetoric of certainty. Students'
presentation of film scenes.
HW. Mladen Dolar: "Cogito as the Subject of the Unconscious" [Cogito
and the Unconscious, 11-40.]
M, Feb. 2. Cogito
and the Unconscious.
HW. Robert Pfaller:
"Negation and Its Reliabilities: An Empty Subject For Ideology?" [Cogito
and the Unconscious, 225-246.]
T, Feb. 3. Film
screening: Orson Welles: The
Stranger (1946).
W, Feb. 4. Cogito
and Ideology.
HW. Slavoj Zizek:
"Four Discourses, Four Subjects" [Cogito and the Unconscious, 74-113.]
F, Feb. 6. Cogito and Sexuality.
HW. Slavoj Zizek:
"The Cartesian Subject Versus the Cartesian Theater" [Cogito and
the Unconscious, 247-274.]
M, Feb. 9. Cogito,
deconstruction, and beyond, or, German Idealism.
HW. Kaja Silverman:
"On Suture." [Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, 137-147.] (Xerox).
Slavoj Zizek: "'In
His Bold Gaze my Ruin Is Writ Large,'" from section "From I to a" to the end of the chapter. [Everything
You Always Wanted to Know About Lacan…, 223-263 plus endnotes.]
T, Feb. 10. Film
Screening: Alfred Hitchcock: Psycho
(1960).
W, Feb. 11. Psycho,
The Lady Vanishes (1938), Murder
(1930).
HW. Immanuel Kant: Prolegomena
to Any Future Metaphysics, the
section: "Preamble on the Peculiarities of All Metaphysical
Cognition," §1-§4, 11-20.
F, Feb. 13.
HW. Immanuel Kant: Prolegomena
to Any Future Metaphysics, the
sections: "The General Question: How Is Cognition From Pure Reason Possible?"
and "How is Metaphysics in General Possible?" 20-24 and 69-90.
M, Feb. 16.
HW. Immanuel Kant: Prolegomena
to Any Future Metaphysics:
"Conclusion: On the Determination of the Bounds of Pure Reason,"
91-104.
T, Feb. 17. Film
Screening: Marcel Carné: The
Children of Paradise (1944).
W, Feb. 18.
HW. Gilles Deleuze:
"Introduction: The Transcendental Method," "The Relationship of
the Faculties in the Critique of Pure Reason," the first three sections of "The
Relationship of the Faculties in the Critique of Practical Reason," and "Preface: On Four Poetic Formulas
Which Might Summarize the Kantian Philosophy" [Kant's Critical Philosophy, 1-35 and vii-xiii.]
F, Feb. 20.
HW. Gilles Deleuze:
"The Relationship of the Faculties in the Critique of Judgment," and "Conclusion: The Ends of
Reason" [Kant's Critical Philosophy, 46-75.]
M, Feb. 23.
HW. Joan Copjec:
"Sex and the Euthanasia of Reason." [Read My Desire: Lacan Against
the Historicists, 201-236 and
endnotes.]
T, Feb. 24. Film
Screening: Alfred Hitchcock: Rear
Window (1954).
W, Feb. 25.
HW. Miran Bozovic:
"The Man Behind His Own Retina" [Everything You Always Wanted to
Know About Lacan…,
161-177.]
F, Feb. 27.
HW. Slavoj Zizek: "Cogito
and the Sexual Difference" [Tarrying
with the Negative: Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology, 45-80.]
M, Mar. 1.
HW. Immanuel Kant:
"Was ist Aufklärung? [What Is Enlightenment?]" [Michel Foucault:
The Politics of Truth, 7-20.]
Michel Foucault:
"What Is Critique?" the first section [The Politics of Truth, 23-36.]
W, Mar. 3.
HW. Michel Foucault: "What Is
Critique?" the second and third sections [The Politics of Truth, 36-61.]
F, Mar. 5.
HW. Max Horkheimer and
Theodor Adorno: "The Concept of Enlightenment" [Dialectic of
Enlightenment, 3-42.]
M, Mar. 8.
HW. Max Horkheimer and
Theodor Adorno: "Odysseus or Myth and Enlightenment?" [Dialectic
of Enlightenment, 43-80.]
T, Mar. 9. Film
Screening: Abel Gance: Napoleon
(1927). Second Part.
W, Mar. 10.
HW. Max Horkheimer and
Theodor Adorno: "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass
Deception" [Dialectic of Enlightenment, 120-167.]
F, Mar. 12.
HW. Immanuel Kant: Observations
on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime, the first two sections, 45-75.
Laura Mulvey:
"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" [Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen
(Eds.): Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, 833-844.] (Xerox.)
M, Mar. 22.
HW. Immanuel Kant: Observations
on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime, the third and fourth sections, 76-116.
T, Mar. 23. Film
screening: Alfred Hitchcock: Vertigo
(1958).
W, Mar. 24.
HW. G. W. F. Hegel:
"II. Perception: Or the Thing and Deception" and "III. Force and
the Understanding: Appearance and the Supersensible World" [Phenomenology
of Spirit, 67-103.]
F, Mar. 26.
HW. Alexandre
Kojève: "In Place of an Introduction" [Introduction to the
Reading of Hegel, 3-30.]
M, Mar. 29.
HW. G. W. F. Hegel:
"IV. The Truth of Self-Certainty" and "VI. Spirit" [Phenomenology
of Spirit, 104-119 and 263-278.]
T, Mar. 30: Film
Screening: Joseph Losey: The
Servant (1963).
W, Mar. 31.
HW. Alexandre
Kojève: "Summary of the First Six Chapters of the Phenomenology
of Spirit" [Introduction
to the Reading of Hegel, 31-70.]
F, Apr. 2.
HW. G. W. F. Hegel:
"II. The Enlightenment" [Phenomenology of Spirit, 328-355.]
M, Apr. 5.
HW. Alexandre
Kojève: "The Dialectic of the Real and the Phenomenological Method
in Hegel," from the beginning to "…or nondialectical method" and from "In agreement with
Aristotle…" to "…to them, or free." [Introduction
to the Reading of Hegel, 169-195
and 224-235.]
T, Apr. 6. Film
Screening: Federico Fellini: 8
1/2 (1963).
W, Apr. 7.
HW. G. W. F. Hegel:
"III. Absolute Freedom and Terror" and "Conscience. The
'beautiful soul,' Evil and its Forgiveness" [Phenomenology of Spirit, 355-365 and 383-409.]
Christian Metz:
"Identification and Mirror" [Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen (Eds.): Film
Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, 800-817.]
F, Apr. 9. Good
Friday: Day Off.
M, Apr. 12.
HW. Slavoj Zizek:
"Hegel's 'Logic of Essence' as a Theory of Ideology" [Tarrying
with the Negative, 125-161.]
W, Apr. 14.
HW. Paul de Man:
"Hegel on the Sublime" and "Kant's Materialism" [Aesthetic
Ideology, 105-118 and 119-128.]
F, Apr. 16.
HW. Jacques Derrida: From
Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism without Reserve" [Writing
and Difference, 251-277.]
M, Apr. 19.
HW. Jacques Lacan:
"The Symbolic Universe" and "A Materialist Definition of the
Phenomenon of Consciousness"
[Book II: The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of
Psychoanalysis, 27-52.]
W, Apr. 21.
HW. Jacques Lacan:
"Homeostasis and Insistence" "Freud, Hegel, and the
Machine" [[Book II: The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of
Psychoanalysis, 53-76.]
F, Apr. 23.
HW. Jacques Lacan:
"The Circuit" [Book II: The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the
Technique of Psychoanalysis,
77-90.]
M, Apr. 26.
HW. Linda Schulte-Sasse:
Courtier, Vampire, or Vermin? Jew Süss's Contradictory Effort to Render the 'Jew'
Other" [Entertaining the Third Reich: Illusions of Wholeness in Nazi
Cinema, 47-91.] (On reserve).
W, Apr. 28.
HW. Karl Marx:
"Chapter 1: The Commodity" and "Chapter 4: The General Formula
for Capital" [Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1, 125-177 and 247-257.] (Chapter 1 on
reserve, chapter 4 Xeroxed.)
F, Apr. 30.
HW. Georg Simmel:
"The Development of the Purely Symbolic Character of Money" and
"Reality and Pure Concepts" [The Philosophy of Money, 146-152 and 165-168.] (On reserve and Xerox,
respectively.)
Alfred Sohn-Rethel:
"Can there be Abstraction other than by Thought?" "The Commodity
Abstraction," and "The Phenomenon of the Exchange of
Abstraction" [Intellectual and Manual Labour: A Critique of Epistemology, 17-29.]
Honoré de Balzac: Sarrasine, from the beginning to "…its little
secrets" [Roland Barthes. S/Z,
221-224.] (Xerox.)
Roland Barthes:
"XIX: Index, Sign, Money" [S/Z, 39-40.]
Kojin Karatani:
"Money," "On Rules," "Selling," "Merchant
Capital," "Credit," and "Afterword" [Architecture
as Metaphor: Language, Number, Money,
67-71, 133-141, 159-187, and endnotes.]
M, May. 3. Students Evaluations.