LITS3304 READING SCHEDULE MODULE
ONE
THEORIES OF LANGUAGE, MIND, KNOWLEDGE, SOCIETY
WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION / LANGUAGE: SAUSSUREAN SEMIOTICS
Required Readings:
Seminar 1:
- Introduction to
course website, overview of course objectives, etc.
- What is Continental Philosophy?
- What is Post-Structuralism?
- What is Philosophy of Language?
- Ferdinand de Saussure:
Course in General Linguistics
(1916) [on-line
source]: read
- either pp. 646-657 in Adams
and Searle
- or pp. 956-976 in Leitch
Seminar 2:
- Ferdinand de Saussure:
Course in General Linguistics
(1916) [on-line
source]: read
- either pp. 646-657 in Adams
and Searle
- or pp. 956-976 in Leitch
Recommended Readings:
Off-Line:
- Kearney, Richard. "Ferdinand de Saussure." Modern Movements in European Philosophy:
Phenomenology, Critical Theory, Structuralism.
Manchester: Manchester UP, 1994. 240-251.
PhilWeb On-Line:
Notes:
WEEK 2: DIALOGISM (THE BAKHTIN CIRCLE)
Required Readings:
Seminar 1: Language (Parole; Discourse)
- V. N. Volosinov Marxism and the Philosophy of Language
(1929): Part II: "Toward a Marxist Philosophy of Language": at
least read
- either "Critique of Saussurian Linguistics" and
"Language as Dialogic Interaction." The Bakhtin Reader.
Ed. Pam Morris. London: Edward
Arnold, 1994. 25-37; 48-61.
- or "'Language, Speech and Utterance" and "Verbal Interaction" Bakhtinian Thought: an
Introductory Reader. Ed. Simon Dentith. London: Routledge, 1995.
107-144. [book on reserve]
Seminar 2: Mind, Self, Subjectivity, Knowledge
- V. N. Volosinov Marxism and the Philosophy of Language
(1929): Part I: "The Philosophy of Language and its Significance for
Marxism" [chapter 1 of Part 1 available on-line
here]
(the earlier information placed here was
erroneous; a copy of Part 1 may be found in the course folder;
alternatively, borrow one of the 2 copies of the book in the library)
Recommended Readings:
Off-Line:
- Dentith, Simon. "Volosinov and Bakhtin on Language." Bakhtinian Thought: an
Introductory Reader. London: Routledge, 1994. 22-40.
PhilWeb On-Line:
Notes:
WEEK 3: STRUCTURALIST MARXISM
Required Readings:
Seminar 1: Society
- Louis Althusser "Contradiction and Overdetermination" (1962)
(pp. 87-128 in For Marx) [on-line
source or
here]
(Note that I have replaced
"On the Materialist Dialectic"
(1963) [pp. 161-222 in For Marx] [on-line
source] with this essay
which is an earlier and
shorter version of the same argument)
Seminar 2: Mind, Self, Subjectivity
- Louis Althusser
- "Marxism and Humanism" (1964) (pp. 219-241 in For Marx
-- read just part IV, pp. 231-236) [on-line
source]
- "Ideology and Ideological State
Apparatuses" (1970) (pp. 121-173 in Lenin and Philosophy and Other
Essays) [on-line
source]:
at least read
- either pp. 239-250 in Adams and Searle
- or pp. 1483-1508 in Leitch
Recommended Readings:
Off-Line:
- Kearney, Richard. "Louis Althusser." Modern Movements in European Philosophy:
Phenomenology, Critical Theory, Structuralism.
Manchester: Manchester UP, 1994. 299-318.
PhilWeb On-Line:
Notes:
Preliminary Background Readings:
Notes on Althusser:
WEEK 4: STRUCTURALIST MARXISM CONTINUED / FOUCAULDIAN DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
Required Readings:
Seminar 1: Knowledge
- Louis Althusser "From Capital to Marx's
Philosophy" (1965) (pp. 11-69 in Reading Capital;
also in folder) [on-line
source]
Seminar 2: Knowledge (Archaeology) / Language
- Michel Foucault The Archaeology of
Knowledge (1969) [on-line
source]:
- Introduction
- "The Unities of Discourse"
- "Discursive Formations"
- The Object of Formation"
(Alternatively, you
may prefer to read "On the Archaeology of
the Sciences: Response to the Epistemology Circle" [1968] [pp. 392-422 in
The Essential Foucault: Selections from the Essential Works of
Foucault, 1954-1984, ed. Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose; also in
folder] which is a condensed version of Part I of The Archaeology
of Knowledge.)
Recommended Readings:
Off-Line:
- Kearney, Richard. "Michel Foucault." Modern Movements in European Philosophy:
Phenomenology, Critical Theory, Structuralism.
Manchester: Manchester UP, 1994. 283-298.
PhilWeb On-Line:
Notes:
WEEK 5: FOUCAULDIAN DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
CONTINUED
Required Readings:
Seminar 1: Knowledge (Genealogy) / Subjectivity: the Body
- Michel Foucault
- "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" (1971) [on-line
source] (pp. 76-100 in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow;
also in folder)
Seminar 2: Society: Power, Truth, Subjectivity
- Michel Foucault
- "Two Lectures" (pp.78-108
in Power / Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other
Writings, 1972-1977, ed. Colin Gordon)
- "The Subject and Power" (pp. 208-226 in Michel Foucault:
Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics by Hubert Dreyfus
and Paul Rabinow; also pp. 126-144 in The Essential Foucault: Selections from the Essential Works of
Foucault, 1954-1984, ed. Paul Rabinow and Nikolas
Rose)
(A brief account of Foucault's notion of power may
also be found in The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: an Introduction [1976]:
Part IV "The Deployment of Sexuality" Ch. 2 "Method" [pp. 92-102]
[see excerpts pp.
1472-1481 in The Critical Tradition, ed. David Richter; also in
folder])
Recommended Readings:
Off-Line:
- Kearney, Richard. "Michel Foucault." Modern Movements in European Philosophy:
Phenomenology, Critical Theory, Structuralism.
Manchester: Manchester UP, 1994. 283-298.
PhilWeb On-Line:
Notes:
[Note that I have shortened Module One to 5 weeks.
Please see changes to Module 2 which I have expanded to 7 weeks.]
END OF MODULE ONE
[LITS3304 students should be writing their term
paper]