Spring 2021  |  CSCL 8002 Section 001: Basic Research Seminar in Comparative Literature II (52164)

Instructor(s)
Class Component:
Lecture
Credits:
3 Credits
Grading Basis:
Student Option
Instructor Consent:
No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:
Completely Online
Class Attributes:
Delivery Mode
Online Course
Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
 
01/19/2021 - 05/03/2021
Mon 02:00PM - 05:00PM
Off Campus
UMN REMOTE
Enrollment Status:
Open (6 of 15 seats filled)
Also Offered:
Course Catalog Description:
Key texts, positions, problematics in field of comparative critical theory. Special attention to historical precursors, influential contemporary debates, disciplinary genealogies.
Class Description:
This graduate seminar, the second in a two-semester Basic Research Seminar sequence, offers a broad introduction to theoretical concepts and paradigms that are foundational for various disciplines in the humanities and interpretive social sciences, and in particular for the intellectual projects typically undertaken in the graduate programs in Comparative Literature and Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society. In tandem with core texts in the Western philosophical tradition from the early modern period through the present, we will engage both non-Western thought and critical reappraisals of Western philosophy--with the understanding that we are taking only a first small step toward what should be a more thoroughgoing interrogation of the epistemic bases of the modern U.S. university. Throughout, we will unsettle the assumption that "theory" is a fundamentally Western way of knowing--or that, whereas "premodern" cultures can be studied through a diverse range of local philosophical traditions, modernity (even in its non-Western guises) can only be studied through "modern" (often Eurocentric) theories. We also will ask what "theory" might displace. Even as we trace "standard" genealogies of modern thought, then, we will interrupt and disrupt those genealogies at every turn. Ultimately, our goal in this seminar will be to explore the possibilities, the limits, and the perils of transcultural epistemic comparison.

Broadly, the course will unfold in three parts: Objectivities: Scientific Origin Stories of Modern Comparative Theory; Collectivities/Subjectivities: History, Politics, Aesthetic Form; and Exchange and Exclusion: Commodities, Signs, Positions. Readings include selections from Bacon, Christian, Derrida, Descartes, Fanon, Hegel, Ibn Khaldun, Kilito, Lorde, Louverture, Lukács, Martí, Marx, Saussure, Spivak, Tagore, Vico, Voloshinov, and Zhen.
Textbooks:
https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/52164/1213
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
21 January 2021

ClassInfo Links - Spring 2021 Cultural Stdy/Comparative Lit Classes

To link directly to this ClassInfo page from your website or to save it as a bookmark, use:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=CSCL&catalog_nbr=8002&term=1213
To see a URL-only list for use in the Faculty Center URL fields, use:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=CSCL&catalog_nbr=8002&term=1213&url=1
To see this page output as XML, use:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=CSCL&catalog_nbr=8002&term=1213&xml=1
To see this page output as JSON, use:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=CSCL&catalog_nbr=8002&term=1213&json=1
To see this page output as CSV, use:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=CSCL&catalog_nbr=8002&term=1213&csv=1
Schedule Viewer
8 am
9 am
10 am
11 am
12 pm
1 pm
2 pm
3 pm
4 pm
5 pm
6 pm
7 pm
8 pm
9 pm
10 pm
s
m
t
w
t
f
s
?
Class Title