General Information
Course Description
9586 - Studies in Phenomenology and Deconstruction - This course will focus on two areas: i) the (dis)continuities between phenomenology and deconstruction in whose formation it played a seminar role, and ii) the turn, under the influence of Saussure and structuralism, from a phenomenological deconstruction still concerned with consciousness and the subject to a (post)structuralism ascetically committed to linguistic models. In studying the relationship among phenomenology, deconstruction and "post-structuralism," we shall try to recover the legacy of phenomenology for contemporary theory, and to analyse the psychic and cultural investments of "post-structuralism." The course will begin by dealing with the phenomenology of Sartre and (more briefly) Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, and will explore the ways in which deconstruction emerges in the differences among these theorists. Particular emphasis will be given to the seminal and forgotten role of Sartre in the "translation" of German idealism into French theory, and to the interstitial place of Blanchot and Levinas in the transition from phenomenology to deconstruction. We will continue by studying the work of Foucault, Derrida and Baudrillard. Particular emphasis will be given to the early work of these writers and to the way it differs from their much more well-known later texts, as well as to the turn to post-structuralism that occurs after these early texts. If time permits, the course will conclude by considering the place of phenomenology in the work of Kristeva or Lyotard.
