Introduction to German Critical Thought II

Catalog description

This course is intended for all Brown students eager to engage in complex pleasure by familiarizing themselves with some of the greatest modern German thinkers and the abiding questions they bring into sharp relief. We will focus on issues of being in the world and the prospect of death; art and politics; language and representation; the relation of capitalism and fascism; and the ambivalent role of technology. Authors to be studied include Heidegger, Bloch, Benjamin, Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, and Arendt. When appropriate, we will also ask our German thinkers to speak a little French, as it were, by discovering connections to certain developments in contemporary French thought (Derrida and others). It is not necessary to have taken “Introduction to German Critical Thought I (Kant to Freud)” to enjoy, and benefit from, this course. In English. Students from diverse fields welcome.