Abstract Systems, Concrete Lives

Establishing the central themes of the course, its guiding questions, and its learning modalitiy.

Suggested reading(s): None before the session.

An exploration of how ancient Greek thinkers approached the course's core problem, providing a conceptual background for subsequent discussions.

An examination of how the modern experience of nature departs from the ancient one, setting the stage for new forms of thought.

An exploration of how modern abstraction in relation to our main themes takes its early form in the work of Thomas Hobbes.

An analysis of how abstraction becomes formalized through the rise of social sciences as a modern academic discipline.

A discussion of how abstraction is critically problematized in Marxism and the phenomenological tradition.

A discussion of the concrete approach to the “political” by Carl Schmitt.

An exploration of Michel Foucault’s account of power alongside his later work on ethics and technologies of the self.

An exploration of feminist interventions in the “humanities,” focusing on the work of Judith Butler.

An inquiry into narrative and voice as concrete modes beyond abstraction.

A discussion of how art becomes a center for attention in the “concrete turn” on which the course has been focusing thus far.

This is a session to be used either as a concluding session, or as an extra session, if the group decides to a.) expand on any of the themes, b.) add another theme, or c.) perform a certain class activity [e.g., a revision session, a writing session, watching a film, etc.]

Suggested reading(s): To be Decided.