PHIL 340 - Seminar in Continental Philosophy

Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)

340a: The Late Foucault. This seminar will conduct a critical study of the late lectures of Michel Foucault delivered at the College de France in the 1970s and 1980s. Unpublished in his lifetime, they are among the most original and challenging of Foucault’s works. Included among them will be, Psychiatric Power, 1973-1974, Society Must Be Defended, 1975-1976, and The Courage of Truth: The Government of Self and Others II, 1983-84.

340b: Derrida and His Umbrella. This advanced seminar seeks to explore the philosophy of Jacques Derrida and his deconstructive exchanges with thinkers past and present, including Kant, Heidegger, Blanchot, Bataille, Marx, Levinas, and Habermas. The focus of the course will be Derrida’s ethical and political writings. Special emphasis will be given to the cluster of issues that occupied Derrida after the end of the Cold War: these include democracy, hospitality, witnessing and the politics of memory, religion, terrorism, the human and the animal. 340a: Mr. Murray. 340b: Ms. Borradori.

One 2-hour period.