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This philosophy seminar examines the notion of culture and its multiple theorizations in recent decades. Edward Said's ORIENTALISM (1978) changed everything in the self-perception of social scientists and scholars of foreign cultures in the United States. We will try to understand and to challenge this view. The first part of the seminar will proceed from a reading of Nietzsche's GENEALOGY OF MORALS to Foucault's ideas on the 19th -century birth of philology and literature. We will also explore the significance of culture in B. Anderson's IMAGINED COMMUNITIES. The second part of the seminar will revolve around the relationship between memory/history and culture. With Freud we will ask is culture if the "memory of mankind" and how (through which mechanisms of memory) a culture is transmitted from generation to generation. The last (and most impressive) echoes of this debate are to be found in Levi-Strauss' writings on culture. As a whole, the seminar aims at a fresh reflection on the genealogy of "culture," both as a reality and a concept.
COURSE FORMAT: Seminar
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA COL Grading Mode: Student Option
Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.
Last Updated on MAR-30-2006
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459