Thinking Through Stories: Benjamin, Adorno, Freud, and Others

Catalog description

What does it mean to think through stories, especially when one’s métier is theory? This seminar considers modes of non-conceptual thought as an essential practice of twentieth-century theory. Here the story takes precedence as evidence and argument – a mode of thinking in its own right – by mobilizing images, rhetoric, plot, and other literary devices to present and examine an idea. The seminar begins with classical precursors such as Plato, biblical parables, and Montaigne and then focuses on twentieth-century thinkers who aim to reinvigorate thought via storytelling. Authors include Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Ernst Bloch, Hannah Arendt, Hans Blumenberg, and others. Taught in English.