Courses

CVSP 208F

Theories that Shaped the 20th Century
Marxism, Nihilism, Psychoanalysis, Structuralism

Semester: Spring

Prof. Peter Bornedal.

TT 11:50-13:00. Room 311 Nicely.

Contact: Tel: 4035.

E-mail: bornedal@hotmail.com & bornedal@aub.edu.lb

 Requirements!

In order to attend the course students must have taken at least one of the required CS courses from sequence I before taking this course

Course Description

The course intends to acquaint students with what in general agreement have been four of the most influential trends in contemporary thinking: Marxism, Nihilism, Psychoanalysis, and Structuralism. The four sequences are introduced through some of the most representative original texts of the philosophers concerned, followed by literary texts that uniquely allegorize aspects of the theories in question. In the first sequence we will read texts by Hegel, Smith, Marx, and George Orwell (we will conclude the sequence by watching the film-adaptation of Orwell’s 1984). In the second sequence, we read Feuerbach, Nietzsche, and Samuel Beckett (we will also watch a theater adaptation of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot), and in the third, Freud, and Mann (we will watch L. Visconti’s adaptation of Mann’s Death in Venice). Finally, in the fourth sequence, we read texts by Saussure, Levi-Strauss, & Barthes. The course repeats some of the issues already present in CS 204 & 206, but more systematically and in depth. It also, for the first time, introduces Structuralism into the CS program.

Learning Objectives

Three major ‘learning’ objectives of the course are to teach that: (1) Theories are social and context-dependent entities; involving that they emerge in a context of several other theories. For example: Marx would have been impossible, and is nearly incomprehensible, without knowing some of his predecessors like Adam Smith and Hegel; Nietzsche did not come up with a criticism of Christianity entirely on his own, but participates in a discourse that goes back to (at least) Feuerbach. (2) Theories can be, should be, and is being criticized, and/or modified, by successive theories—this criticism thus changing (perhaps improving) what objectively has already been achieved. For example: most implementations of Marxism in the 20th century were aberrations that Marx would never have endorsed; are therefore best being criticized. (3) Theories are general (therefore abstract) explanations of a human life-world that is of immediate concern for everybody; that they are not just abstract curriculum stuff, but are interactive in our formation and understanding of the surrounding life-world. They are instruments of rationalizing a chaotic life-world.

Teaching resources:

(1) Books

Marx & Engels: A Marx-Engels Reader (W. W. Norton).

George Orwell: 1984 (Penguin Books, 1990).

Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot (Grove/Atlantic).  

Sigmund Freud: An Outline of Psychoanalysis (W. W. Norton).

Thomas Mann: Death in Venice (Vintage).

(2) Copied selections from

Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations

G. F. W. Hegel: The Phenomenology of Spirit (‘Londship and Bondage’)

Ludwig Feuerbach: The Essence of Christianity.

Friedrich Nietzsche: The Will to Power (‘Nihilism’).

Ferdinand de Saussure: Course in General Linguistics

Claude Levi-Strauss: Structural Anthropology (‘The Structural Study of Myth’).

(3) Movies Related to Material:

Radcliff’s 1984

Lindsay-Hog’s Waiting for Godot

Visconti’s Death in Venice

Syllabus:

4 Weeks: MARXISM: THE ANALYSIS OF CAPITALISM AND THE PROMISE OF COMMUNISM

                        G. F. W. Hegel: From The Phenomenology of Spirit ('Londship and Bondage')

                        Marx & Engels: The Communist Manifesto (in A Marx-Engels Reader)

                        Smith: Excepts from The Wealth of Nations + Marx: Excepts from Capital, (A  

                        Marx-Engels Reader)

                        George Orwell: 1984 (+ movie: 1984)

3 Weeks: NIHILISM: REEVALUATING VALUES IN THE FACE OF THE DIMINISHING AUTHORITY OF

                               GOD

                        Ludwig Feuerbach: Excepts from The Essence of Christianity

                        Friedrich Nietzsche: “Nihilism” from The Will to Power

                        Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot (+ theater play, Waiting for Godot)

3 Weeks: PSYCHOANALYSIS: TOWARD A THEORY OF HUMAN IRRATIONALITY

                        Sigmund Freud: An Outline of Psychoanalysis

                        Thomas Mann: Death in Venice

2 Weeks: STRUCTURALISM: THE UNCONSCIOUS STRUCTURES THAT FORM OUR BELIEFS

                        Ferdinand de Saussure: Excepts from Course in General Linguistics

                        Claude Levi-Strauss: “The Structural Study of Myth” from Structural Anthropology

Reading Selections