Critical Theory and Discourse Theory
2006 Discourse Theory Summer School: Week 3
| Course Description | Details |
| Presenter Profile | - Date |
| Readings | - Time |
| Prerequisites | - Venue |
| Detailed Course Outline | - Fee |
Course Description
This one-week course covers the key philosophical and political issues that distinguish critical theory from discourse theory. We study in turn the following themes: language, ontology, ethics, the Political, and understanding contemporary politics from both perspectives. The main points of theoretical reference will be the works of Adorno and Habermas, and Laclau and Mouffe. However, the course does touch on the work of among others, Derrida, Levinas, Connolly, Butler, Zizek and Badiou.
The course will consist of 10 sessions of two hours each – so each theme will be explored during two two-hour sessions. The sessions will be based on presentations by the course facilitator but participants are strongly encouraged to pose questions of clarification in the context of on-going lectures and to discuss their own research work. Each session will begin with a one-hour lecture. The course will be limited to a maximum of 30 participants.
Presenter Profile
Dr Mark Devenney
University of Brighton, England
Mark Devenney teaches political philosophy at the School of Historical and Critical Studies at the University of Brighton. He recently published Ethics and Politics in Contemporary Theory: Between Critical Theory and Post-Marxism (2004) with Routledge, and is completing a manuscript on political philosophy and death. He graduated from Essex University, England where Ernesto Laclau was his supervisor. His research interests include continental political philosophy, psychoanalysis, conceptualising death, and the novels of J.M. Coetzee.
Course convenor: Peter Kitchenman 0064 4 463 9488, peter.kitchenman@vuw.ac.nz
Readings
A book of the readings listed below will be provided to all participants approximately 2 months before the course begins.
Prerequisites
A willingness to engage with all the readings before the course starts. It is not necessary to have done the Introduction to Discourse Theory course before enrolling in this course. However, there are particular readings marked with an asterisk that must be read by all participants. For those who have not previously read any of this material it would help to look at one or two introductory texts to continental philosophy. For example:
Critchley, S. (2001). Continental philosophy: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
West, D. (1996). An introduction to continental philosophy. Cambridge: Polity Press.
West, D. (1993). The contribution of continental philosophy. In R. E. Goodwin & P. Pettit (Eds.), A companion to contemporary political philosophy (pp. 39-71). Oxford: Blackwell. (included in the course book of readings, pp. 327-343)
Details
Date
Monday 4 December to Friday 8 December 2006
Time
Monday 10am – 12.45pm, 1.45pm – 4pm
Tuesday to Friday 9am – 11.15am, 12.15pm – 2.30pm
Venue
MY682, Murphy Building, Level 6, Room 682
Kelburn Campus
Victoria University of Wellington
Wellington
New Zealand
Fee
Private or Government sectors: NZ$894.38 incl GST (12.5%)
Academic and NGO sectors: NZ$444.38 incl GST (12.5%)
Supported and International Students: NZ$281.25 incl GST (12.5%)
Unsupported student: NZ$150 incl GST (12.5%)
Detailed Course Outline
(This may change slightly before publication of course readings)
1. The Politics of Performativity
This first day introduces participants to the main differences in terms of philosophy of language, that are the starting points for discourse theorists and contemporary critical theorists respectively. In particular we focus on speech act theory, performativity and structural linguistics as developed in the work of Habermas and Laclau. The different approaches to speech act theory and structural linguistics shape the theoretical divisions discussed in the rest of the course.
*Austin, J. (1975). How to do things with words: The William James lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955 (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon. p.1-11. (Original work published 1962)
Devenney, M. (2004). Performativity and politics: From Habermas to Laclau. In M. Devenney, Ethics and politics in contemporary theory: Between critical theory and post-marxism (pp. 49-59). New York: Routledge.
*Habermas, J. (1996). What is universal pragmatics? (T. McCarthy, Trans.). In W. Outhwaite (Ed.), The Habermas reader (pp. 118-131). Cambridge: Polity Press. (Original work published 1976)
*Laclau, E. (1993). Discourse. In R. E. Goodwin & P. Pettit (Eds.), A companion to contemporary political philosophy (pp. 431-437). Oxford: Blackwell.
Pusey, M. (1987). Communication and social action. In M. Pusey, Jurgen Habermas (pp. 69-86). London: Tavistock.
2. Ontology and Politics
In recent years a reworking of ontological arguments has characterised debates concerning the definition of the Political. In these two sessions we examine critical theoretical and discourse theoretical critiques of ontological arguments and explore how different arguments to the question of ‘Being’ contour assumptions about politics.
Adorno, T. (1973). Being and existence (E. B. Ashton, Trans.). In T. Adorno, Negative dialectics (pp. 97-131). New York: The Seabury Press. (Original work published 1966)
*Badiou, A. (2004). The question of being today (R. Brassier & A. Toscano, Trans.). In A. Badiou, Theoretical writings (pp. 39-48). London: Continuum.
*Habermas, J. (1987). The undermining of Western rationalism through the critique of metaphysics: Martin Heidegger (F. Lawrence, Trans.). In J. Habermas, The philosophical discourse of modernity. Twelve lectures (pp. 131-160). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. (Original work published 1985)
*Jarvis, S. (1998). Materialism and metaphysics. In A. P. Jarvis, Adorno: A critical introduction (pp. 193-216). Cambridge: Polity Press.
*Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (1990). Post-marxism without apologies. In E. Laclau, New reflections on the revolution of our time (pp. 97-132). London: Verso. (Original work published 1986). Required reading only pp. 102-112.
White, S. K. (2000). Introduction: The weak ontological turn. In S. K. White, Sustaining affirmation: The strengths of weak ontology in political theory (pp. 3-17). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Zizek, S. (1999). Embracing the act (part of chapter 4: Political subjectivization and its vicissitudes). In S. Zizek, The ticklish subject: The absent centre of political ontology (pp. 232-239). London: Verso.
3. Ethics: Discourse Theory and Critical Theory
Discourse theorists are consistently charged with undermining the very possibility of any ethics. These two sessions critically assess both Habermas’s critique of this approach, and Laclau’s recent work on ethics. We consider the possibility of moral universalism in light of these debates. The sessions also draw on the work of Derrida, Levinas and Badiou.
*Badiou, A. (2002). The ethics of truths (P. Hallward, Trans.). In A. Badiou, Ethics: An essay on the understanding of evil (pp. 40-57). London: Verso.
Bennington, G. (2000). Deconstruction and ethics. In G. Bennington, Interrupting Derrida (pp. 34-46). London: Routledge.
Bernstein, J. (2001). Ethical modernism. In J. Bernstein, Adorno: Disenchantment and ethics (pp. 415-456). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Habermas, J. (2003). Are there post-metaphysical answers to the question: What is the good life? In J. Habermas, The future of human nature (pp. 1-15). Oxford: Polity Press. (Original work published 2001). Not included in course book of readings.
*Laclau, E. (1996). 'The time is out of joint'. In E. Laclau (Ed.), Emancipation(s) (pp. 66-83). New York: Verso.
*Laclau, E. (2004). An ethics of militant engagement. In P. Hallward (Ed.), Think again: Alain Badiou and the future of philosophy (pp. 120-137). London: Continuum.
Levinas, E. (2000a). Freedom and responsibility (B. Bergo, Trans.). In E. Levinas, God, death, and time (pp. 176-179). Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press. (Original work published 1993)
Levinas, E. (2000b). The ethical relationship as a departure from ontology (B. Bergo, Trans.). In E. Levinas, God, death, and time (pp. 180-184). Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press. (Original work published 1993)
Levinas, E. (2000c). The extra-ordinary subjectivity of responsibility (B. Bergo, Trans.). In E. Levinas, God, death, and time (pp. 185-189). Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press. (Original work published 1993)
4. Politics: Deliberative Democracy versus Radical Democracy
In these two sessions we address the theoretical implications of the philosophical disputes for how the Political is conceptualised. The sessions will trace the origin of the different approaches to the Political, and the understanding of democratic politics that follows from this. There are only two readings for these sessions, but these will be very carefully and critically discussed, drawing upon the material already read.
*Habermas, J. (1998). On the internal relation between the rule of law and democracy. In J. Habermas, The inclusion of the other: Studies in political theory (pp. 253-263). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
*Mouffe, C. (2000). A politics without adversary. In C. Mouffe, The democratic paradox (pp. 108-128). London: Verso.
5. Politics: Conceptualising the Present: Genetics and Globalisation
On the final day we explore the different theoretical approaches to the most pressing political issues of the day: the conceptualisation of human nature in light of genetics; the implications of globalisation for the understanding of democratic politics and the current ‘war’ against terrorism.
*Badiou, A. (2004). Philosophy and the 'war against terrorism' (O. Feltham & J. Clemens, Trans.). In A. Badiou, Infinite thought: Truth and the return to philosophy (pp. 141-164). London: Continuum.
*Borradori, G. (2003). Introduction: Terrorism and the legacy of the enlightenment. In J. Habermas, J. Derrida & G. Borradori, Philosophy in a time of terror: Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida/[interviewed by] Giovanna Borradori (pp. 1-22). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
*Habermas, J. (2003b). Fundamentalism and terror: A dialogue with Jurgen Habermas. In J. Habermas, J. Derrida & G. Borradori, Philosophy in a time of terror: Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida/[interviewed by] Giovanna Borradori (pp. 25-43). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Not included in course book of readings.
*Habermas, J. (2003a). The debate on the ethical self understanding of the species. In J. Habermas, The future of human nature (pp. 16-100). Oxford: Polity.
*Laclau, E. (2004). Can immanence explain social struggles? In P. A. Passavant & J. Dean (Eds.), Empire's new clothes: Reading Hardt and Negri (pp. 21-30). New York: Routledge.
