Reading with Theory

READING WITH THEORY

Comparative Literature 60B

Prof. Rei Terada

Office: HIB 270

Office hours: MWF 1-2

messageboard: https://eee.uci.edu/toolbox/messageboard/m13542/

DESCRIPTION

Reading with Theory is an introduction to critical theory from philosophical critique to Foucault, Derrida, , antiracist theory, postcolonial theory, and queer theory. Theory—a systematic attempt to inquire into why things are they way they are and/or build new models of how they can be—is one of the main ways to open up thinking about the world and to make thinking more conscious and critical. Ideally, in theory every value is open to question, even the “true” and the “good,” and the critic is empowered to take issue with anything that others, or her society, may take for granted. This course tries to give a sense of some particular kinds in theory, relationships between kinds of theory and earlier and later theorists, and how these bear on contemporary questions. Often contemporary issues are treated directly in the texts, but even when they’re not we will bring them in. The works include two recent films which are also treated as theories.

WORKS

All of the texts listed on the schedule below are available in PDF on the course website, in the folder: https://eee.uci.edu/toolbox/dropbox/index.php?op=openfolder&folder=300938(and in one case through an external link). Often, whole books are available and we are reading small parts of the books. For each day's discussion, please print out the relevant pages (only) and bring them with you to class. We're also viewing two films, Apitachong Weerasethekul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Remember His Past Lives and Fatih Akin's The Edge of Heaven. Both are available streaming on Amazon and Netflix. They're free if you're a subscriber, and if you're not a subscriber, you can sign up for a month's free trial or borrow someone else’s account.

REQUIREMENTS

posts on electronic messageboard: 20%

paper: 20%

exam 20%

presentation: 20%

participation: 20%

Participation means not only attending but speaking and specifically, bringing things up that you want to talk about, changing the subject, helping the class to move in some direction. Attendance is obviously a prerequisite for participation. You can miss up to 3 classes without harming your participation performance. Beyond that please bring a medical excuse.

ABOUT ELECTRONIC POSTING

Before each class for which a text or film is being discussed, go to the class messageboard on EEE, https://eee.uci.edu/toolbox/messageboard/m13542/, and post your thoughts about the text or film that we’re discussing. A good post is a longish-paragraph long; there is no particular kind of thing you should write, except that hopefully it would be honest and thoughtful. Please do read what some others have posted and respond to them if you feel like it. I’ll be reading the messageboards in the late nights before class and will sometimes participate by commenting. One thing: to get credit you have to post the night before (up to 2:00 a.m. is fine) and not in the morning of the same day of class—that’s too late for me to get it. If you’d like to see some sample posts from a previous class please visit https://eee.uci.edu/toolbox/messageboard/m2858/. Please note that plagiarism is not OK on the messageboard just as it is not OK in any academic work.

SCHEDULE

I. Critique (What makes things appear the way they appear?

Mon Jan 7 Introduction

Wed Jan 9 Immanuel Kant and Critique (passages brought to class – no reading)

Fri Jan 11 Michel Foucault, preface to The Order of Things (dropbox);

Jorge Luis Borges, “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins” (dropbox)

Mon Jan 14 Foucault, "What is an Author" in The Essential Writings of Foucault

Wed Jan 16 Foucault, continued

Fri Jan 18 a response to critique:
Saba Mahmood, from The Politics of Piety, Chapter 5 (dropbox)

Mon Jan 21 MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. DAY – No Class

II. Archaeology (How are things ordered? At whose expense?)

Wed Jan 23 Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense” (dropbox)

Fri Jan 25 Nietzsche, from A Genealogy of Morals (dropbox)

Mon Jan 28 Foucault, “The Madman in the Garden of Species”
from History of Madness (dropbox)

III. Critiques of gender

Wed Jan 30 Dean Spade, “Mutilating Gender,” in Stryker (dropbox)

Fri Feb 1          Judith Butler, from Gender Trouble (dropbox), pp. 9-11
                         Natalie Reed, “On Detransition”:
                         http://freethoughtblogs.com/nataliereed/2012/11/06/on-detransition/

Mon Feb 4 Midterm

IV. Anti-racist theories

Wed Feb 6 Edward Said, Orientalism, Introduction, pp. 1-4,
and passages of your choice (dropbox)

Fri Feb 8          Apitachong Weerasethekul, Uncle Boonmee Who Can
                        Remember His Past Lives (Amazon streaming video:
                        http://www.amazon.com/Uncle-Boonmee-Recall-Past-Lives/dp/B009NSXYQC)

Mon Feb 11 Apitachong Weerasethekul, Uncle Boonmee Who Can
Remember His Past Lives (Amazon streaming video)

Wed Feb 13 No class

Fri Feb 15 Jacques Derrida, Monolingualism of the Other, Chs. 1 and 2 (pp. 1-11 as printed on the actual
pages) (dropbox)

Mon Feb 18 Presidents’ Day – No class
Tue Feb 19 PAPER DUE by email by 5:00 p.m.

Wed Feb 20 Jacques Derrida, The Monolingualism of the Other, Ch. 6 (dropbox)

Fri Feb 22 Frank Wilderson, from Red, White, & Black: Cinema
and the Structure of U.S. Antagonisms (dropbox)

Mon Feb 25 Fatih Akin, The Edge of Heaven (Netflix streaming video)

Wed Feb 27 Fatih Akin, The Edge of Heaven

Fri Mar 1 No class

Mon Mar 4 Student presentations

Wed Mar 6 Student presentations

Fri Mar 8 "

Mon Mar 11 "

Wed Mar 13 etc.

Fri Mar 15

Wednesday, January 9, 2013