Courses

Courses at the Centre are taught by both Core and Non-core faculty at Western, as well emeritus faculty and visiting lecturers. Master's students are required to fulfill a “breadth requirement” by taking at least one half course from each of groups A & B:

Group A: aesthetics, philosophy, psychoanalysis, language theory
Group B: social, cultural and political theory
Group C: topical focus covering a variety of theorists from the above areas, as well as 19th-century, modern, and contemporary theory

More information on Course Requirements can be found here.
Required Course Forms can be found here

2022-23 COURSES

Fall 2022

Method of Delivery Title Instructor Day & Time Category
In Person*

9155 - The Waning of Philosophies of Difference and the Rise of the New Universalism

Antonio Calcagno Wednesday
10am - 1:00pm
[A]
In Person* 9325 - Finitude and Plentitude Joshua Schuster Wednesday
3:30 - 6:30pm
[C]
Online 9223 - Climate Change Michael Gardiner Thursday
1:30 - 4:30pm
[B]
Online 9207 - Life: The Impact of the Life Sciences on Philosophy and Other Philosophical Domains, from Kant to Esposito Tilottama Rajan Friday
11:00am - 2:00pm
[A]

 * Theory & Criticism courses take place in Stevenson Hall Rm. 3165 unless otherwise noted

Winter 2023

Method of Delivery Title Instructor Day & Time Category
In Person* 9421 - The Benjamin Constellation John Vanderheide Monday
10:00am - 1:00pm
[A]
In Person* 9659 - Theorizing Care in an Uneven World Kate Lawless Tuesday
1:30pm - 4:30pm
[B]
In Person* 9440 - “A Vermilioned Nothingness”: Late Lacan, Sexuation, Sinthome, and the Prosdiorism Allan Pero Wednesday
1:30pm - 4:30pm
[C]
In Person*

9149 - Ecological Conversion: From Critique to Creation

Russell Duvernoy Thursday
1:30 - 4:30pm
[C]

  *Theory & Criticism courses take place in Stevenson Hall Rm. 3165 unless otherwise noted

Historical course offerings:

2021-22

9150A Disability, Ability and the Idea of Self - Jeremy Colangelo [B]

9202A Cine-Perception - Janelle Blankenship [A]

9206B Instrumentality - Jonathan De Souza [C]

9222A Anti-Psychoanalyses: A (Short and Incomplete) History of Confluences and Conflicts - Cristina Ionica [A]

9229B Biopolitics and the Unconscious - Matthew Rowlinson [B]

9244B Postcolonial Theory at the Limits of the Animal - Jason Sandhar [B]

9326B Ways of Seeing, Ways of Listening - Sharon Sliwinski [A]

9538B Critical Phenomenology - Helen Fielding [C]

9637A Questioning Aesthetics - Julian Haladyn [A] 

9656A Social Theory in the Age of Austerity - Matt Stahl [B]

 

2020-21

9154A The Philosophy of Hannah Arendt: Rethinking the Social and the Political - Antonio Calcagno [B]

9203B Land, Language, Locatives - Regna Darnell [B]

9223B Climate Change - Michael Gardiner [B]

9246A Schoenberg/Wittgenstein - Kevin Mooney [C]

9329B Teasing the dainty rods of vision: Imaginary/Imagination/Semblance - Allan Pero [A]

9422Y Translating Theory - Jan Plug [C]

9460B The Arts and Politics of the Situationist International (1957-1972) - Ed Matthews [A]

9614Y Idealism and the Margins of Philosophy: (Inter)Disciplinarity in Kant, Hegel, Schelling - Tilottama Rajan [A]

9655A Theorizing Environmental Subjectivity - David Janzen [C] 

 

2019-20

9153B The Avant-gardes as Anti-Culture: A History of “Radicalism” and “Excess” - Cristina Ionica [A]

9201B Cyberwar Theory - Nick Dyer Witheford [B]

9204A Immaterial - Mary Helen McMurran [B]

9327A Techniques of the Body in Greece, Rome, and the Modern Era - Charles Stocking [B]

9423A The Performance of Race - Nigel Joseph [C]

9449B Postwork Imaginaries - Michael Gardiner [B]

9501A Writing Aloud: Theories of Sound and Silence - Christof Migone [A]

9538B Critical Phenomenology - Helen Fielding [C]

9579B Why (and how) are things similar?: Analogy, Example, Metaphor, Taxonomy - Laurence de Looze [A]

9640B Existential Risk - Joshua Schuster [A]

9656A Social Theory in the Age of Austerity - Matt Stahl [B]

 

2018-19

9152A From Dada to Dank Memes: Revolt, Revulsion, and Discontent - Andrew Wenaus [C]

9210B Hantology, or Reading Byung-Chul Han - Julian Jason Haladyn [B]

9228B Keywords for the 21st Century - Regna Darnell [B]

9245A Zones of Entanglement: Philosophy, the Life Sciences and Medicine 1785-2012 - Tilottama Rajan [A]

9328A Reconciliation and its Discontents: Theory, Art, Critique - Pauline Wakeham [A]

9347B French Enlightenment Thought and the Rise of Materialism - Ed Matthews [A]

9436A The Subject of the Object - Peter Schwenger [C]

9449B Post-work Imaginaries - Michael Gardiner [B]

9500A Mimesis in Modernity - John Vanderheide [A]

9559B Under Elding Towers, Among Dimming Stars: The Spaces and Politics of Modernity - Allan Pero [A]

 

2017-18

9205A A Design for Life: Aesthetico-Politics in Semio-Capitalism - Aarnoud Rommens [A]

9424B Marx from Beginning to End: The 1844 Manuscripts Today - Nick Dyer Witheford [B]

9432B Contemporary theories of Fascism and Counter-Fascism - Mireya Folch Serra [B]

9440A Of the Mycelium and its Gravity: Late Lacan, Sexuation, Sinthome, and the Baroque - Allan Pero [C]

9458B Critical Race and Feminist Studies - Erica Lawson [C]

9503A Political Responses to Crisis and Collapse: Hannah Arendt, Edith Stein, Rosa Luxemburg, and Simone Weil - Antonio Calcagno [B]

9565B Imagining Community - Jan Plug [A]

9617A Indigenous Critical Theory: Key Concepts and Debates - Pauline Wakeham [B]

9637A Questioning Aesthetics - Julian J. Haladyn [A]

9640B Existential Risk - Joshua Schuster [A]

9538B Feminist Phenomenology - Helen Fielding [C]