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Teaching Proposals in Philosophy
BA [hons.]
MA,
2002-2003:
Semester One
Time and the
Constitution of the Self (Postgraduate)
Philosophy,
Fantasy and Film (3rd Year Undergraduate)
Semester Two
Phenomenology and Existentialism (3rd Year Undergraduate)
Postmodernism: Contemporary Philosophy and Deconstruction (Postgraduate)
Important
Note: Anyone who may be anxious about
signing up for these courses (and having to produce their work) in English may
take this as a genuine opportunity to improve their skills in this area – quite
apart from the fact that very few of the course texts have actually been
translated into Hebrew. I will help you to edit your work. Lack of proficiency
in English writing skills will not preclude you from qualifying to take any of
my courses (believe me, they will improve), and it will not result in lower
grades. I am primarily interested in the quality of your ‘ideas.’
Please address all questions about my courses to: cafedifferance@yahoo.com
Course Descriptions:
Time and the Constitution of
the Self (formerly entitled, “The
Phenomenology of Time”)
We all know what time is until
we begin to talk about it. The most significant philosophers of the Occident
have flexed their intellectual muscles over the problem of time and its
articulation. This course charts the various forms of temporal discourse that
have evolved from the pre-socratics to the contemporary era of
This is a seminar-based class and it involves close
study of Edmund Husserl’s groundbreaking writing on the phenomenology of time
consciousness. As well as examining the issue of how linear time is constituted
– as the principle condition of the possibility of a continuous identity / Self
– the aim is to facilitate awareness of the non-linear temporal forms that are
also in play throughout this constitution. Discourse on pluri-dimensional
temporalities has now become an almost commonplace theme along with the
evolution of computer information dissemination technology (cyberspace).
Philosophy,
Fantasy and Film (formerly entitled,
“Cinema: Philosophy and the Moving Image”)
This course examines the treatment of philosophical issues
such as the Self and existential alienation, alterity and the ethics of
difference, gender perception, the asymmetry of the relations between
individual and collective, metaphysics and the margins between the real and the
virtual in the medium of the moving image. However, it is not so much a class
on the philosophy of cinema as an exploration of philosophy through the
lens piece of cinema.
The course also examines how the grammar of cinematic narrative form has been introjected into contemporary interactive computer generated virtual environments and how this cyber-spatial dimension of the moving image is rapidly changing our perspective on the classic contradistinction between reality and fantasy.
The classes
consist in audio-visual lectures and seminars. The core films are:
Alien and Blade
Runner (Dir. Ridley Scott)
Apocalypse Now (Dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
Bitter Moon (Dir. Roman Polanski)
A Clockwork
Dark Star (Dir.
John Carpenter)
Equus (Dir. Sidney Lumet)
eXistenZ (Dir.
David Cronenberg)
The Last Temptation of Christ (Dir. Martin Scorsese)
The
Matrix (Wachowski Brothers)
Metropolis (Dir. Fritz Lang)
Monty
Python’s Life of Brian (Dir. Terry Jones)
The Seventh Seal (Dir.
Ingmar Bergman)
Solaris (Dir.
Andrei Tarkovsky’s
adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s story)
The Truman Show (Dir.
Peter Weir)
Phenomenology
and Existentialism
The aim of this course is to acquaint
the student with the meaning of phenomenology as a descriptive method of
interrogation and its application in existential thought. The constellation of
texts that come under discussion includes the works of
Postmodernism:
Contemporary Philosophy and Deconstruction
In this era of pluralism, the work of
Jacques Derrida has completely changed the tone and aims of contemporary philosophical
discourse, smudging the boundaries between literature and philosophy. However,
despite the playful style of deconstructive writing, its methodological roots
lie in one of the most rigorous philosophical disciplines – phenomenology. This
course traces the theoretical, methodological and strategic elements that
define the praxis of deconstruction, which provides an opening onto the meaning
of the postmodern. Other postmodern writers, such as
Other Courses (not available 2002-2003):
Classical Modern
Philosophy (Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Epistemology)
A study of the great debate between
rationalism and empiricism: from Descartes to Hume – culminating in the Kantian
treatment of the classic contradictions. The focus of study is on the
development of epistemological methods – in relation to discourse on the Self,
perception and scientific certainty – and the effect on the philosophy of the
enlightenment. The course texts also include the writings of
Existential
Transvaluations: Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty
The
Logics of Différance
Jacques Derrida is the ‘bad boy’ of contemporary
philosophy. His writing concerns itself with the deconstruction of the logics of
Western philosophy. It is ‘rigorous’ iconoclastic fun. However, this textual
play also has a serious role in re-situating philosophical problems within the
postmodern milieu of contemporary thought. The stratagem of différance introduces a constellation of
logics that re-define the notion of critique in philosophical discourse. It is
the purpose of this course to examine Derrida’s praxis of deconstruction in
detail and, through close reading of his texts, to unfold the logics that are
operative in his writing.
Philosophical
Narratives (Philosophy as Story-Telling)
Academic philosophical style is often dry, technical and
esoteric. This course examines a number of significant texts in philosophy that
have broken away from the traditional narrative forms. The contemporary trends
in postmodern philosophy participate in a long history of alternative
philosophical narratives.
The
following texts are examined:
Fear and Trembling. Soren Kierkegaard.
Labyrinths. Jorge Luis Borges.
Metamorphosis. Franz Kafka.
Mrs. Dalloway. Virginia Woolf.
No Exit (Huis
Clos). Jean-Paul Sartre.
Notes from the
Underground. Fyodor
Dostoevsky.
The Symposium. Plato.
Twilight of the Idols. Friedrich Nietzsche.
Philosophy
and the Ethics of Madness
This course examines alternative
forms of discourse on madness from the point of view of the living-experience of such exotic mental
phenomena – beyond the standard language of Western clinical psychological
pathologization – i.e., ‘abnormal psychology.’ There is chaos in order while
madness, despite appearances, can be very ordered in its dis-order. The problematic ethics of ‘professional’ psychological
judgement is subjected to a critique – especially regarding its traditionally
presupposed normative foundations. This involves the application of a
constellation of different methodological techniques according to the practice
of depth-phenomenological-psychology. These techniques open up discourse on
madness (as politics and as the manifestation of Otherness) at the precise
moment that traditional psychology generally subjects it to closure.
This is a workshop (seminar-based)
course and students are required to read selections of texts by the following
writers:
The
Philosophy of Passion
Passion is a favourite theme of
poetry and literature, but in philosophy it has generally been reduced to
nothing more than an irrationalism. Not surprisingly, this says more about the
limits of rationalism. Emotions have an inherent rationale of their own, in
excess of the limitations of the hegemonic Aristotelian logic of the excluded
middle. This course examines a number of ‘respectable’ philosophies of passion
and desire, which have succeeded in fleshing-out their own logics. The
principal writers discussed are: Marquis de Sade, George Bataille, Jean-Paul
Sartre, Albert Camus, Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, John Fowles, Henry Miller
and Anais Nin (we shall also take a look at The Story of O, Pauline Réage a.k.a. Anne Desclos).