Gwybodaeth Modiwlau
Course Delivery
Delivery Type | Delivery length / details |
---|---|
Seminars / Tutorials | 10 Hours. (10 x 1 hour) |
Lecture | 10 Hours. (10 x 1 hour) |
Assessment
Assessment Type | Assessment length / details | Proportion |
---|---|---|
Semester Assessment | Seminar Performance | 10% |
Semester Assessment | 1 x 2,000 word essay | 30% |
Semester Assessment | 1 x 3,500 word essay | 60% |
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
Demonstrate a good understanding of approaches described as poststructural;
Discuss some of the ethico-political questions raised by this work;
Demonstrate a familiarity with key poststructuralist writers, based on a direct reading of their texts.
Brief description
Research inspired by post-structural approaches forms a challenging contribution to recent international relations, political philosophy and postcolonial politics. There are two linked modules that explore this field. This first module allows students to develop a critical appreciation and understanding of poststructuralist work through a reading of primary writings. They will then be well placed to go on, if they wish, to study scholars of international politics or other disciplines who draw on this work or continue to pursue a more in-depth study of the poststructural politics literature in the second semester module. The module concentrates on giving an overview of these approaches, rather than examining the debates between postmodernism and its critics. There are no prerequisites, apart from a willingness to read in depth and engage with the material.
Content
Lectures
1. The question of the subject in modern philosophy
2. The Crisis of Marxism
3. Marerialism without the dialectic: Althusser
4. Biopolitics and sovereignty in modernity: Foucault I
5. Sovereignty and Oikonomia: Agamben I
6. Community, immunity and the social contract: Esposito I
7. Thinking in the Open: Agamben II
8. A politics of mingled bodies: Esposito II
9. World making: on the Community of existence, J-L Nancy
10. The Courage of Truth: Foucault II
Aims
The module begins with a brief examination of Nietzsche and Althusser and then focuses in great detail on the work of five thinkers- Foucault, Derrida, Agamben, Deleuze and Esposito. The course is divided into three sections. The first section engages the theme of subjectivity in modern philosophy. It also examines the decisive steps taken by Nietzsche and Althusser in announcing poststructural work in philosophy and politics. The second section develops the poststructuralist critique of the current conception of politics in the work of Foucault, Agamben and Esposito. The third section looks into the issues of ethics and alternative notions of subject and politics in the work of Agamben, Derrida, Foucault and Deleuze. Lectures introducing key areas are accompanied by seminars based on careful readings of selected texts supported by extensive discussions. The lectures include opportunities for questions and debate. Seminars will be student-led.
Transferable skills
10 ECTS credits
Reading List
General TextCaroline Williams (2001) Contemporary French philosophy: modernity and the persistence of the subject. London: Athlone Press Primo search Edkins, Jenny. (1999.) Poststructuralism and international relations :bringing the political back in /Jenny Edkins. Primo search
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 6