Surface Theories

Catalog description

Contemporary theory has turned surface phenomena into the grounds and foundations for conceptual work: from moebius-strips to simulacra, from skin to screens, from folds to planes. But theory's superficial turn has led to radically different critical uses. What accounts for the pervasive fascination with surface imaginaries in theoretical thought? This course will engage us in a series of critical reflections on the deployment, as well as the folding and warping, of figures of superficiality, flatness, smoothness, transparence, and nakedness in contemporary theory, from deconstruction to biopolitics, from media studies to queer and transgender theory, from animal and environmental studies to phenomenology, from systems theory to aesthetics. Readings will include texts by Baudrillard, Deleuze and Guattari, Derrida, Han, Didi-Huberman, Foucault, Lyotard, Nancy, Serres, Sloterdijk and others.