Term II 2010
Department of English and Cultural Studies
McMaster University
CSCT 701
Issues in Cultural Studies and Critical Theory II:
Sites and Spaces of Critique
Holland House (Kensington) Library ( September 1940)
On the Remains of the University
Dr. David L. Clark
Office: CNH 210, Ext. 23737
Email: dclark@mcmaster.ca
Website: www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~dclark/
Office Hours: Tuesday 4:00-5:00 pm
“Today, how can we not speak of the university?”
--Jacques Derrida
Course Description:
Extending some of the critical skills acquired CSCT 700, this course invites students to develop a
nuanced critique of the university–its institutional structures, conceptual bases, disciplinary formations,
as well as its representations, self-understandings, cultural locations, and historical incarnations and
provenances. One of the primary objectives of the course is to provide students with a particular casestudy with which the subject of power/ knowledge at the heart of CSCT 700 can be explored. In other
words, the university will be treated as specific “site and space” of the theory and practice of critique
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evoked in the program’s other core course. Yet the university is not one object of analyses among many,
but rather a question that has direct, pertinent, and problematical relevance to the life and thought of both
the students and professors involved in the MA in Critical Theory and Cultural Studies. In theory, so to
speak, the university constitutes a space of autonomous critical inquiry, an archive of received
knowledges, and the site of the production of new knowledge. This course interrogates that historically
sanctioned notion of the university, and instead treats the academy as a cultural phenomenon that calls
for sustained, rigorous investigation. A wide range of analyses will be brought to bear on the university,
from a historical exploration of the institution’s origins in the German Enlightenment, to its role in the
invention and legitimation of bodies of knowledge, especially “the human sciences,” to its complex
relationship with technology, global capital, and state power, as well as radical democracy and social
justice. A discussion of what the university is and was forms the basis of a critical conversation about its
possible futures--or what Jacques Derrida has called “the university to come.” Special emphasis will be
given to what Bill Readings describes as “the university in ruins”–the university as the haunted, troubled,
and troubling site of remains that critical theory and cultural studies uneasily call home.
Working with an array of discourses about the university ranging from Immanuel Kant’s The Conflict of
the Faculties (1798) to contemporary critiques of the theory and practice of academic studies, this course
will address a number of critical questions, including: What roles do critical theory and cultural studies
play in the university today? In what ways is the university an historical effect, an expression of
competing social and historical forces that account for its peculiar shape? What is the raison d’etre of the
university, past and present? How has the distinction between “applied” and “pure” research constituted
and deformed the university? How is the contemporary university caught up in the phenomenon known
as “globalization.” What roles do the universities play in the deployment of biopower? Is a university of
dissent possible?
Required Texts:
1) Readings, Bill. The University in Ruins. Harvard UP, 1996.
2) Giroux, Henry A. and Susan Searls Giroux. Take Back Higher Education: Race, Youth, and The
Crisis of Democracy in the Post-Civil Rights Era. New York: Palgrave, 2004.
3) Derrida, Jacques. The Eyes of the University: Right to Philosophy, Vol 2. Stanford UP, 2004.
4) Derrida, Jacques, “University Without Condition.” In Without Alibi. Stanford UP, 2002.
[Coursepack]
5) Britzman, Deborah, Lost Objects, Contested Subjects: Toward a Psychoanalytic Inquiry of Learning.
Albany: SUNY P, 1998.
6) Giroux, Susan Searls. Between Race and Reason: Violence, Intellectual Responsibility, and the
University To Come. Stanford UP, forthcoming. [Coursepack]
7) Simon, Roger I. “The University: A Place to Think?” [To be made available to students as a .pdf]
8) Mark C. Taylor, "End the University as We Know It,"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opinion/27taylor.html
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9) Henry A. Giroux, "Higher Education Under Siege: Implications for Public Intellectuals,"
http://www.nea.org/assets/img/PubThoughtAndAction/TAA_06_08.pdf
10) Kate Zerkicke, "Career U: Making College 'Relevant,'"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03careerism-t.html?scp=1&
11) Tad Friend, "Letter from California: 'Protest Studies: The State is Broke and Berkeley is in
Revolt,'"
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/01/04/100104fa_fact_friend
[This link only gets you to an abstract of Friend's essay in The New Yorker. To access the entire
essay, click "Read the full text of this article in the digital edition. (Subscription required.)" and
then use the user name and password I provide in class.)
12) Stanley Fish, "Will the Humanities Save Us?"
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/will-the-humanities-save-us/
13) Stanley Fish, "Fish to Profs: Stick to Teaching (Interview with Andy Guess),"
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/07/01/fish
14) Stanley Fish, "Neoliberalism and Higher Education,"
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/neoliberalism-and-higher-education/
15) LaCapra, Dominick, “The University in Ruins?” [Critical Inquiry 25 (Autumn 1998): 33-55]
16) Rey Chow, “‘An Addiction from Which We Can Never Get Free.’” [New Literary History 36.1
(2005) 47-55]
(Additional readings will be provided and suggested along the way, depending on the questions,
problems, and issues raised in the seminar. Students are especially encouraged to recommend
supplemental readings for class discussion.)
Work and Mark Distribution, Assignment Descriptions
Seminar Participation and Creation (25%)
Instead of delivering formal presentations, members of the class will be encouraged and expected to
create, on an ongoing basis, a lively graduate seminar–i.e. an inquisitive and informed space of critical
labour, discussion, and debate. All students will therefore be expected to contribute consistently and
meaningfully to the intellectual life of the seminar, developing and volunteering questions and arguments
as well as responding mindfully to queries and challenges that are put to them by their classmates and by
their instructor.
Students must be willing and able to:
–read and engage all assigned materials.
–attend all classes and participate in all classes.
–explore and absorb as much related critical material as possible, both seeking this material out
independently and in consultation with their classmates and instructor.
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–develop questions and arguments that are directly relevant to the materials at hand, and actively
to introduce these points into the class discussion on a consistent basis.
–listen and respond thoughtfully to the issues raised in class, engaging the issues in ways that
complicate and advance the intellectual life of the seminar.
–foster a developing scene of pedagogy, bearing in mind that a central part of our task is to teach
others and to be taught.
At midterm, students will be given an informal assessment of the quality of their seminar participation
work. Authors of response papers circulated in a given class should contribute to the class discussion in
an especially robust way, taking particular responsibility for leading the seminar on that day.
Response Papers (3 x 10%=30%)
Each student will be responsible for three 500-word (2 pages) responses to the readings, each of which is
worth 10% of your final grade, for a total of 30%. The papers must be completed and circulated at least
48 hours before the relevant class and circulated to both me and the members of the class via e-mail.
(Response papers are assigned by lottery as seen below.) Don’t forget that you need to give your
classmates and your instructor time to consider your remarks, and that in any given class, six response
papers will be in circulation! Response papers should provide a succinct summary of and engagement
with some of the text’s most pressing themes, arguments, and questions. The response paper should be
written in such a way to prompt and provoke discussion in class. Authors of the response papers should
be prepared to speak in class about the questions and issued raised in those papers. You are free to
exchange response paper assignments among yourselves.
Response Paper Allotments
Student 1: Response papers 3,5,8
Student 2 Response papers 1,4,6
Student 3 Response papers 2,4,6
Student 4 Response papers 2,4,6
Student 5 Response papers 1,3,6
Student 6 Response papers 3,5,7
Student 7 Response papers 1,4,7
Student 8 Response papers 1,5,8
Student 9 Response papers 2,5,7
Student 10 Response papers 2,5,7
Student 11 Response papers 3,6,8
Student 12 Response papers 3,6,8
Student 13 Response papers 2,4,7
Student 14 Response papers 2,5,8
Student 15 Response papers 1,3,8
Student 16 Response papers 1,4,7
Research Essay (45%)
15-20 page essay. Students are encouraged to write a research essay on a topic of their own choosing.
Essays will eventually be made available on my website, with the permission of each student. I am
happy to discuss your research essay with you at every stage, but all students are expected to consult with
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me about their work at least once prior to submitting the essay.
E-mail protocol:
The Faculty of Humanities has issued the following set of instructions to students: “It is the policy of the
Faculty of Humanities that all email communication sent from students to instructors (including TAs),
and from students to staff, must originate from the student's own McMaster University email account.
This policy protects confidentiality and confirms the identity of the student. Instructors will delete emails
that do not originate from a McMaster email account.”
All e-mails must be written in full sentences (i.e. no point form, no text-messaging short form), and must
contain a subject line that includes the course designation, i.e., "701." Receipt of all e-mails from me
must be acknowledged.
Class cancellations:
In the unlikely event of class cancellations, students will be notified on the Department of English and
Cultural Studies website and on my website. It is your responsibility to check these sites regularly for
any such announcements.
Link:
http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~english/ (Department of English and Cultural Studies)
Link:
http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~dclark/
(Dr. David L. Clark)
University Statement Regarding Academic Dishonesty:
Academic dishonesty consists of misrepresentation by deception or by other fraudulent means
and can result in serious consequences, e.g. the grade of zero on an assignment, loss of credit with a
notation on the transcript (notation reads: “Grade of F assigned for academic dishonesty”), and/or
suspension or expulsion from the university.
It is your responsibility to understand what constitutes academic dishonesty. For information on
the various kinds of academic dishonesty please refer to the Academic Integrity Policy, specifically
Appendix 3, located at:
http://www.mcmaster.ca/univsec/policy/AcademicIntegrity.pdf
The following illustrates only three forms of academic dishonesty:
i) Plagiarism, e.g. the submission of work that is not one’s own or for which other credit has been
obtained.
ii) Improper collaboration in group work (Insert specific course information)
iii) Copying or using unauthorized aids in tests and examinations.
All submitted work is subject to normal verification that standards of academic integrity have been
upheld. See:
http://www.mcmaster.ca/academicintegrity/
Statement from the Office of the Associate Dean, Faculty of Humanities
The instructor and university reserve the right to modify elements of the course during the term. The
university may change the dates and deadlines for any or all courses in extreme circumstances. If either
type of modification becomes necessary, reasonable notice and communication with the students will be
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given with explanation and the opportunity to comment on changes. It is the responsibility of the student
to check their McMaster email and course websites weekly during the term and to note any changes.
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Provisional Seminar Schedule (Term II 2010)
CSCT 701: On the Remains of the University
January
12
Prefatory remarks
Giroux, “Higher Education Under Siege”
Fish, “Stick To Teaching;” “Will the Humanities Save Us?”
“Neoliberalism and Higher Education.”
Zerkike, “”Career U: Making College ‘Relevant’”
Tad Friend, “Protest Studies: The State is Broke and Berkeley is in
Revolt”
Taylor, “End the University as We Know It.”
February
19
Introduction
26
Readings, The University in Ruins (Chapter 1-6) [Response paper 1]
2
Readings, The University in Ruins (Chapter 7-12)
9
LaCapra, Dominick, “The University in Ruins?” [Critical Inquiry 25 (Autumn
1998): 33-55;
Rey Chow, “‘An Addiction from Which We Can Never Get Free.’” [New
Literary History 36.1 (2005) 47-55]
Roger I. Simon, “The University: A Place to Think?” [To be made available to
students as a .pdf]
March
April
16
Reading Week
23
[Class cancelled]
2
Giroux and Giroux, Take Back Higher Education (Chapter 1-3) [Response
paper 2]
9
Giroux and Giroux, Take Back Higher Education (Chapter 4-7) [Response
paper 3]
16
Derrida, “The Principle of Reason: The University in the Eyes of its Pupils;”
“Mochlos,” each from The Eyes of the University [Response paper 4]
23
Derrida, “Vacant Chair: Censorship, Mastery, Magisteriality;” “Sendoffs,” each
from The Eyes of the University; “University Without Condition”
(Coursepack) [Response paper 5]
30
Giroux, Between Race and Reason [Response paper 6]
6
Giroux, Between Race and Reason [Response paper 7]
13
Britzman, Deborah, Lost Subjects, Contested Objects [Response paper 8]