@UIUC: Critical Theory Lectures (Tues. Evenings Fall Semester)

Once again the Unit for Criticism will be offering its Tuesday evening lectures on
Modern Critical Theory. These lectures are intended to introduce graduate
students to some of the key texts that lie behind contemporary work in critical
theory and cultural studies. Lectures are open to all graduate students.

Thank you,
Michael Rothberg

The Modern Critical Theory lecture series

Fall 2007


All lectures are on Tuesday evenings, 7:30-9:00 pm, in English 160, unless
noted--starting 28 Aug. All readings, except for entire books (Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault,
Derrida), will be on e-reserves.

Note that a lot of EALC students have attended these lectures and found them useful. And even if you don't have time to read in advance you can still benefit from sitting in.


8/28: Kant: Michael Rothberg (Unit), Jim Hansen (English), and Robert Rushing
(Comp Lit)

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen
Wood, "'B' Introduction"

Kant, Critique of Judgment (Introduction, Parts I-IV)

Kant, Critique of Judgment (selections in Norton)

Edmund Burke, “Of the Passion Caused by the Sublime”

Recommended: Frederick Beiser, "The Enlightenment and Idealism," from The
Cambridge Companion to German Idealism


9/4: Hegel: William Schroeder (Philosophy)

G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller (Introduction, “Sense-
Certainty,” and “Self-Consciousness” [through “lordship and bondage”], pp.
46-66 & 104-119)


9/12: Nietzsche (WEDNESDAY, GREGORY HALL 223): Alexander Nehamas
(Philosophy, Princeton University)

Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals (book)


9/18: Freud: Lilya Kaganovsky (Slavic/Comp Lit)

Sigmund Freud, “Fetishism” and selections from The Interpretation of Dreams
(Norton)
Sigmund Freud, Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (book)


9/25: Marxism: Jim Hansen (English)

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, selections from Norton

Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction” (Norton)

Theodor W. Adorno, “On the Fetish Character of Music and the Regression of
Listening”


10/2: Structuralism: Michael Rothberg (English/Unit)

Readings by Ferdinand de Saussure and Roland Barthes (only from Mythologies)
in Norton

Claude Lévi-Strauss, “Structural Analysis in Linguistics and in Anthropology,”
Structural Anthropology

Louis Althusser, “Marx’s Immense Theoretical Revolution,” Reading Capital


10/9: Lacan, Althusser, Zizek: Robert Rushing (Italian/Comp Lit)

Jacques Lacan, "The Mirror Stage" & "The Agency of the Letter in the
Unconscious" (Norton)

Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" (Norton)

Slavoj Zizek, "Courtly Love, or Woman as Thing," in The Metastases of Enjoyment
(pp. 89-112)

Slavoj Zizek, "How Did Marx Invent The Symptom?," in The Sublime Object of
Ideology (pp. 11-53)


10/16: Derrida: Bruce Rosenstock, Religious Studies

Jacques Derrida, Limited, Inc. (book)


10/24: Foucault: (WEDNESDAY, in GREGORY HALL 223): Martin Jay, History
(University of California, Berkeley)

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (book)


10/30: Feminism: Sarah Projansky (Gender and Women’s Studies/Cinema
Studies)

Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1974).

Patricia Hill Collins, "Some Group Matters: Intersectionality, Situated
Standpoints, and Black Feminist Thought." Fighting Words: Black Women and the
Search for Justice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. 201-228.

Anne Fausto-Sterling, "Gender Systems: Toward a Theory of Human Sexuality."
Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York:
Basic Books, 2000. 233-255.

Ella Shohat. "Gendered Cartographies of Knowledge: Area Studies, Ethnic
Studies, and Postcolonial Studies." Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices. Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 2006. 1-16.


11/6: Queer Theory: Martin Manalansan (Anthropology/Asian American Studies)

Judith Butler, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination”

Cathy Cohen, "Punks, Bulldagger, and Welfare Queens: The Radical
Potential of Queer Politics?" GLQ 3: 437-485.

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “Introduction: Axiomatic,” Epistemology of the Closet.
pp. 1-67.

Michael Warner, “Introduction” in Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and
Social Theory. pp. vii-xxxi

Secondary Readings:

John D’Emilio, “Capitalism and Gay Identity”

Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality: Volume 1. Sections on biopower and
repressive hypothesis.

Esther Newton, Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America. Chapter 5,
“Role Models” pp 97-111

Gayle Rubin, “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of
Sexuality”


11/13: Postcolonial Theory: Jed Esty (English)

Frantz Fanon, "The Negro and Recognition," from Black Skin, White Masks (pp
210-222)

Edward Said, “Introduction,” from Orientalism (Norton)

Homi Bhabha, “The Commitment to Theory” (Norton)

Gayatri Spivak, from Critique of Postcolonial Reason (pp. 112-140)

Secondary:
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., “Critical Fanonism,” from Critical Inquiry (1991)


For more information, contact Michael Rothberg or consult the
Unit for Criticism website: criticism.english.uiuc.edu