Deconstruction and Postmodernist Philosophy

PHIL 530

Fall 2009

Instructor: Daniel W. Smith

Department of Philosophy

Office: BRNG 7131

Hours: TTh, 4:20-5:00pm, and by appointment

Course Time and Location

TTh 12:00-1:15pm

BRNG 1248

Description of Course

This semester’s seminar will focus on the work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1925-1984). Foucault’s writings are generally divided into three periods, each of which focuses on a particular theme—knowledge, power, and ethics. In this course, we will focus on the first two periods, and in particular, on close readings of The Order of Things, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1.

Required Texts

Foucault, Michel, The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Vintage, 1970), ISBN 0679753354.

Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage, 1995), ISBN 0679752552.

Foucault, Michel, and Chomsky, Noam. The Chomsky-Foucault Debate: On Human Nature (New York: New Press, 2006), ISBN 1595581340

Foucault, Michel, Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1974-1975 (New York: Picador, 2003), ISBN 0312424051.

Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction (New York: Vintage Books, 1980), ISBN 0679724699.

Davidson, Arnold I, The Emergence of Sexuality: Historical Epistemology and the Formation of Concepts (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), ISBN 0-674-00459-0.

Deleuze, Gilles, Foucault, trans. Sean Hand (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984).

Foucault, Michel, Power, The Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, Vol. 3 (New York: New Press, 2001), ISBN 1565847091.

Course Requirements

1. Class participation (10%). You are expected to attend class regularly. All students are expected to have read the assigned material before each class and to be prepared to discuss it.

2. Presentations (20%). Each seminar participant will be required to give a short class presentation, as well as to respond to another student’s presentation. For the presentation, you should send via email, by 12:00 noon of the day preceeding the seminar (in the office of the philosophy department) a one-page, single-spaced that summarizes what you take to be the primary themes of the reading (with regard to the concerns of the seminar), and poses two questions/comments/problems/criticisms. On the day of the seminar, you will have approx. 10-15 min. to present your analysis and questions, and a respondent will have approx. 5-10 min. to react to them. The paper need not be exhaustive; its purpose is primarily to serve as a guide to the reading of the texts, and to facilitate discussion.

3. Written Papers (70%). You will be required to write a mid-term paper of approx. five pages (25%), and a final paper of 15-20 pages (45%). We will discuss the topics of the papers in class.

IV. Reading Assignments and Tentative Course Outline (subject to change, if necessary)

I. Introduction

Week 1: Aug 25: Introduction

II. Knowledge

Aug 27: The Order of Things I: Las Meninas

Reading: Foucault, Order of Things, pp. ix-16

Week 2: Sep 01: The Order of Things II: Resemblance and Representation

Reading: Foucault, Order of Things, pp. 17-77

Sep 03: The Order of Things III: Speaking, Classifying, Exchanging

Reading: Foucault, Order of Things, pp. 78-214

Week 3: Sep 08: The Order of Things IV: The Limits of Representation (Labor, Life, Language)

Reading: Foucault, Order of Things, pp. 217-302

Presenter: Craig Titus

Respondent: Yubraj Aryal

Sep 10: The Order of Things V: Man and His Doubles

Reading: Foucault, Order of Things, pp. 303-343.

Presenter: Holden Mugford

Respondent: Craig Titus

Week 4: Sep 15: The Order of Things VI: The Human Sciences

Reading: Foucault, Order of Things, pp. 344-387.

Presenter: Chris Penfield

Respondent: Alberto Ufquidez

Sep 17: NO CLASS (conference)

Week 5: Sep 22: NO CLASS (conference)

III. Power

Sep 24: Discipline and Punish I: The Political Technology of the Body

Reading: Foucault, Discipline and Punish, Parts I and II, pp. 3-131, especially “The Body of the Condemned,” pp. 3-31.

Also: “The Subject and Power,” in Power (on Foucault’s concept of power).

Presenter: Paul Elliot

Respondent: Emre Koyuncu

Week 6: Sep 29: Discipline and Punish II: Discipline and the Body (Anatomo-Politics)

Reading: Foucault, Discipline and Punish, “Docile Bodies.” pp. 135-169.

Presenter: Adam Lerner

Respondent: Brian Kanouse

Oct 01: Discipline and Punish III: Discipline and the Body (Anatomo-Politics)

Reading: Foucault, Discipline and Punish, “The Means of Correct Training,” pp. 170-194.

Presenter: John Dowd

Respondent: Holden Mugford

Week 7: Oct 06: Discipline and Punish IV: The Panopticon

Reading: Foucault, Discipline and Punish, “Panopticism,” pp. 195-230.

Presenter: David Hiatt

Respondent: Kristine Wilson

Oct 08: Discipline and Punish IV: Illegalities and the Carceral

Reading: Foucault, Discipline and Punish, “Complete and Austere Institutions,” “Illegalities and Delinquency,” “The Carceral,” pp. 231-308.

Presenter: Emre Koyuncu

Respondent: Adam Lerner

Week 8: Oct 13: NO CLASS (October Break)

Oct 15: Human Nature I: The Chomsky-Foucault Debate

Reading: “A Debate between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault,” pp. 1-68.

Presenter: Nicolae Morar

Week 9: Oct 20: Human Nature II: The Chomsky-Foucault Debate

Reading: “Truth and Power,” “Omnes et Singulatim: Toward a Critique of Political Reason,” pp. 140-210.

Presenter: Alberto Urquidez

Respondent: Chris Penfield

Oct 22: The Abnormal I: The Psychiatric Expert

Reading: The Abnormal, pp. 1-80.

—No presentation—

Week 10: Oct 27: The Abnormal II: The “Dangerous Individual” (The Monster)

Reading: The Abnormal, pp. 81-166 (esp. 109-136).

Also: “About the Concept of the ‘Dangerous Individual’ in Nineteenth Century Legal

Psychiatry,” in Power, pp. 176-200.

Presenter: Katie Mattix

Respondent: Matthew Bradney

Oct 29: NO CLASS (SPEP conference)

Week 11: Nov 03: The Abnormal III: Making Up People

Readings: Ian Hacking, “Making Up People” and “Biopower and the Avalanche of Printed Numbers” (handouts).

Presenter: Brian Kanouse

Respondent: John Dowd

Nov 05: History of Sexuality I: Sexuality and the Repressive Hypothesis

Reading: Foucault, History of Sexuality, “We ‘Other’ Victorians” and “The Repressive Hypothesis” (pp. 1-49).

Presenter: Matthew Bradney

Respondent: David Hiatt

Week 12: Nov 10: History of Sexuality II: Scientia Sexualis

Reading: Foucault, History of Sexuality, “Scientia Sexualis,” pp. 53-73.

Also: The Abnormal, pp. 167-200.

Presenter: Peter Sinnott

Respondent: Katie Mattix

Nov 12: History of Sexuality III: The Dispositif of Sexuality

Reading: Foucault, History of Sexuality, “The Deployment of Sexuality,” pp. 77-131.

Presenter: Richmond West

Respondent: Patrick Hagmeier

Week 13: Nov 17: History of Sexuality IV: The Concept of ‘Bio-Power’

Reading: Foucault, History of Sexuality, “Right of Death and Power over Life,” pp.135-159.

Presenter: Patrick Hagmeier

Respondent: Paul Elliot

Nov 19: History of Sexuality V: Perversion

Readings: Arnold I. Davidson, “Closing Up the Corpses,” in The Emergence of Sexuality, pp. 1-29.

—No presentation—

Week 14: Nov 24: History of Sexuality VI: The Emergence of Sexuality

Readings: Arnold I. Davidson, “Sex and the Emergence of Sexuality,” in The Emergence of Sexuality, pp. 30-65.

—No presentation—

Nov 26: NO CLASS (Thanksgiving Break)

Week 15: Nov 24: What is Enlightenment?

Readings: Foucault, “What is Enlightenment?” and “Polemics, Politics, and Problematizations,” in The Foucault Reader (handout).

Presenter: Kristine Wilson

Respondent: Peter Sinnott

DELEUZE’S READING OF FOUCAULT

Dec 03: The 1986 Seminar I: “Topology: ‘Thinking Otherwise’”

Readings: Deleuze, Foucault, “Strata or Historical Formations,” pp. 47-69; “Strategies or the Non-Stratified,” pp. 70-93.

Presenter: Justin Litaker

Respondent: Marco Altamirano

Week 16: Dec 08: The 1986 Seminar II: “Topology: ‘Thinking Otherwise’”

Readings: Deleuze, Foucault, “Foldings, or the Inside of Thought,” pp. 94-123; “What is a Dispositif?”

Presenter: Marco Altamirano

Respondent: Justin Litaker

Dec 10: Beyond Foucault

Readings: Deleuze, “On the Death of Man and the Overman,” in Foucault, pp. 124-132; and “Postscript to Societies of Control” (in Negotiations).

Also: Jeff Nealon, Foucault Beyond Foucault.

Presenter: Yubraj Aryal

Respondent: Richmond West

Week 17: Final Paper due 12:00 noon, Wed Dec 16.