CSCL 8910 is also offered in Fall 2024
CSCL 8910 is also offered in Spring 2024
CSCL 8910 is also offered in Fall 2023
CSCL 8910 is also offered in Spring 2023
CSCL 8910 is also offered in Fall 2022
CSCL 8910 is also offered in Fall 2021
Fall 2024 | CSCL 8910 Section 001: Advanced Topics in Comparative Literature -- Spinoza and the Twentieth Century (33927)
- Instructor(s)
- Class Component:
- Lecture
- Credits:
- 3 Credits
- Repeat Credit Limit:
- 24 Credits
- Grading Basis:
- Student Option
- Instructor Consent:
- No Special Consent Required
- Instruction Mode:
- In Person
- Class Attributes:
Topics Course
- Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
UMTC, East Bank
Folwell Hall 13
- Enrollment Status:
Open (9 of 15 seats filled)
- Also Offered:
- Course Catalog Description:
- Practical applications of specific methodologies and theories to a determined area. Topics vary by instructor and semester.
- Class Notes:
- In "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," Louis Althusser writes: "As is well known, the accusation of being in ideology only applies to others, never to oneself (unless one is really a Spinozist or a Marxist, which, in this matter, is to be exactly the same thing). Which amounts to saying that ideology has no outside (for itself), but at the same that it is nothing but outside (for science and reality). Spinoza explained this completely two centuries before Marx, who practised it but without explaining it in detail... [This point] is heavy with consequences, consequences which are not just theoretical, but also directly political, since, for example, the whole theory of criticism and self-criticism, the golden rule of the Marxist-Leninist practice of the class struggle, depends on it." This highly suggestive passage is exemplary of the ways in which the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza became of crucial importance for the development of materialist thought in France and Italy during the second half of the last century, and, in particular, for a paradigm shift that marked a move away from the Hegelian legacy and from its hegemonic hold on historical materialism. This course will attempt to formulate and answer the three following questions: "Why Spinoza?," "Why Then?," and "Why Now?" In other words, this course will engage in three different types of investigations at once: an ontological investigation concerning Spinoza's thought (which will be considered also in the context of the philosophical and political debates of his own time); a theoretical-methodological investigation concerning the reasons for Spinoza's return during the second half of the last century as well as concerning the paradigm innovations that such a return enabled; and a political investigation concerning Spinoza's relevance for any present and future historical-materialist praxis. We will proceed accordingly by studying two different types of materials: a) we will engage in careful clo
- Class Description:
- Student may contact the instructor or department for information.
- Textbooks:
- https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/33927/1249
ClassInfo Links - Fall 2024 Cultural Stdy/Comparative Lit Classes