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PROPOSED
Doctoral Seminar in Interdisciplinary Studies I: Language, Power, Performance, and Process
Prof. Sha Xin Wei
3 credits
By
permission of instructor.
Introduction
This is a readings-based seminar on the foundations of critical studies of language, power, performativity, and process. It is intended to be taken by students doing graduate studies at the Doctoral and Masters levels. Topics and readings will vary according to the semester and individual participants' interests. Broadly they introduce some of the major critical approaches taken with theories of language (Wittgenstein, Derrida), power (Foucault, Stengers), performance (Artaud, Grotowski, Brook), and process (Deleuze and Guattari, Whitehead).
Schedule
Weekly discussion, paper at end of term.
Proposed Readings
Critiques of language and representation (3 weeks)
We begin with a close look at how we think and talk about language, meaning, representation. The Wittgenstein reading motivates questioning the limits of representation, psychology, and positivist schema. The Derrida essay provides a compact unpacking of writing, communication, and performativity.
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
Derrida, "Signature, Event, Context"
Optional: Austen, How to Do Things with Words
Critique of categories, power (3 weeks)
By examining the genealogy of categories such as the insane, or the criminal, we can nuance what a scientific approach tends to make transcendental. Formally, certain conundrums reveal themselves as artifacts of logicist or ahistorical approaches. We discuss the purchase on power afforded by understanding how social categories have histories. Pignarre and Stengers propose attitudes informed by a critique of present-day capitalist imaginary.
Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
Stengers & Pignarre, Capitalist Sorcery
Performance (2 weeks)
Artaud, "Theater of Cruelty, First Manifesto," Letter to J.P. (1932)
Grotowski, Physical Action with Jerzy Grotowski (selections)
Brook, "The Open Door"
Process (4 weeks)
How can we address the concerns of the humanities and social sciences without starting from egocentric or anthropocentric positions? What would be a cosmopolitical, to borrow Stengers’ term, approach to the questions of language, power, action, subjectivity, experience, and what Guattari called ethico-aesthetics?
Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway (selections)
Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (selections)
Optional: Whitehead, Process and Reality (selections)
Evaluation
A paper at end of term. (100%)
Note
Students not in the Humanities PhD program should check with their home programs that they can take this course for credit.
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