Critical Theory Emphasis

These new reflections on Violence and Politics form a recasting and a continuation of the Wellek Library Lectures, delivered at UCI in April 1996. The following questions will be addressed:

1) Lessons to be drawn from the Hegelian theory of the «conversion» of historical violence into political institutions (or «objective spirit») and the limits of this process («inconvertible violence»); posthegelian critiques of violence;

2) «Objective» forms of extreme violence (tentatively interpreted in terms of the Marxist «fetishism of commodities», i.e. inversion of the relationship between «persons» and «things»); «subjective» forms of extreme violence (tentatively interpreted in Freudian terms as a counter-investment of the transindividual «self» by the «death drive»);

3) Poststructuralist discussions of the Freudian notion of the «death drive (Lacan, Deleuze);

4) Historical models of the interaction of the «objective» and «subjective» aspects of extreme violence: «colonial hypothesis» and world-economy of violence; «repressive hypothesis»and the monopoly of legitimate violence of the sovereign State;

5) Ethics and politics of civility: the model. of tragedy.

Reading list
The primary readings are marked with *
ALLEN James (ed.): Without Sanctuary. Lynching Photography in America, Twin Palms publishers 2000
*CAVELL Stanley: Le déni de savoir dans six pièces de Shakespeare, Editions du Seuil 1993
*DELEUZE Gilles and GUATTARIFélix : A Thousand Plateaux University of Minnesota Press.
*DERRIDA Jacques: Force de loi. Le «fondement mystique de l’autorité», Galilée 1994
ELIAS Norbert: The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners et State Formation and Civilization, Oxford, Blackwell, 1978 et 1982)
FAULKNER William: Absalom, Absalom! any standard edition
*FOUCAULT Michel: Histoire de la sexualité I: La volonté de savoir, Gallimard 1976 (In English: The History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault. Vintage Books)
*FREUD Sigmund: Group Psychology and the analysis of the Ego, translated and edited by James Strachey. New York: Norton, [1975] c1959.
*FREUD Sigmund: Beyond the pleasure principle translated and edited by James Strachey; intro by Gregory Zilboorg. New York: Norton, [1975] c1961.
*HEGEL G.W.F.: Reason in History (Introduction to the Lessons on the Philosophy of History) Prentice Hall
KALDOR Mary: New and Old Wars. Organized Violence in a Global Era, Stanford University Press 1999
KEANE John: Reflections on Violence, London, Verso 1996
*LACAN Jacques: Le séminaire, Livre VII, L’éthique de la psychanalyse, Seuil 1986 (The Ethics of Psychoanalysis (Seminar on Lacan, Book 7))
LACAPRA Dominick: Representing the Holocaust, Cornell University Press
LUXEMBURG Rosa: La révolution russe, in Œuvres, vol. II, Petite Collection Maspero *MARX Karl: Capital, Book One, Penguin Books
WOOLF Virginia: Three Guineas, Penguin Books