PHIL 283 - French Philosophy in the 1960s

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

Many of the foundations for contemporary European philosophy can be traced to a rare confluence of original thinkers who were active in France at the same time. The philosophical methods of post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, and philosophical archeology were developed in Paris throughout the 1960s, and seminal philosophical works were written by Emmanuel Levinas, Roland Barthes, Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Pierre Vernant, and Julia Kristeva, among others. Forming an unlikely canon of mostly immigrants, homosexuals, women, Jewish thinkers, and thinkers from colonized nations, these French and French-speaking philosophers introduced new ways of thinking about the unconscious, history, language, politics, and excluded or marginalized “others.” After Foucault, who encouraged us to think about philosophy in terms of brief, historical, intellectual periods, this course will consider French thought in the 1960s. Mr. Holloway.

Two 75-minute periods.