Special Topics in Comparative Literature (488-0-21)
Topic
Theories of Freedom & Liberation
Instructors
Christoph Rudolf Everhard Menke
Meeting Info
Kresge Centennial Hall 2-319: Tues 5:15PM - 7:45PM
Overview of class
Theories of Freedom & Liberation
"Freedom" is a basic term in Western culture, for it became the formal designation of the right way to live—to think, to act, to exist—through which European culture replaced the classical idea of the good life, which had consisted in the exercise of the virtues. At the same time, however, "freedom" is a thoroughly ambiguous and dubious word that, from the beginning of its function as a basic concept, contained implicit and explicit programs for new forms of domination, including domination in the relation of the self to itself, to the world, and to others. For this reason, a critique of freedom is necessary.
The seminar will focus on the idea that freedom exists only in becoming, that is, as "liberation." For it is precisely this idea of liberation that underlies the dominant narratives of post-classical Western culture (and modernity in particular): liberation defines its notions of history, subjectivity, education, politics, the arts, etc. And it is therefore also the thought and process of liberation that most clearly exhibits the dialectical knot that links freedom and domination in their contradiction. From this perspective, processes of liberation will be examined in the seminar. We will ask, for example: what drives those processes? How do they proceed? How do they fail and/or how do they establish new orders of domination?
The seminar will pursue these questions by examining a variety of methodological approaches. These include the following: the exploration of the putative Greek origin of Western freedom in the history of ideas (Meier, Patterson, Raaflaub); the systematic conceptualization of the relations between freedom, capacity, and habit (Arendt, Hegel); the psycho-social analysis of the entanglement between emancipation and domination (Fanon, Hartman); the relation between experience and liberation in aesthetic theories of freedom (Adorno, Blanchot, Heidegger, Nancy); and the question of the relation between religion and freedom (Lévinas, Santner).
Registration Requirements
Reserved for Graduate Students.