CULTURAL THEORY
Prof Erick Heroux
何艾克
NTUA Fall Semester 2009
schedule
Fridays 9:20 – 12 noon
DATE
ASSIGNMENT DUE
9-18
Intro to class: The art-world goes transdisciplinary.
movement” & “cultural studies” etc.
archive of theory.
9-25
Handout:
Get 1st photocopy packet.
“Continental philosophy” & “global justice
Seminar will negotiate and select reading topics from the vast
“Proposal Toward Visual Eco-Criticism” by Katie Kurtz.
Read Giorgio Agamben:
“What Is the Contemporary?”
The real
problem for contemporary artists is not “what is art?” but rather, “how does one become
contemporary?”
Part 2 of class: Representations of animals in contemporary art have strategic consequences.
Terms: anthropomorphic & theriomorphic.
10-2
Finish chapter from Steve Baker: Picturing the Beast: Animals, Identity, & Representation (to page
29)
blog.
10-9
Also check out the links to visual ecocriticism and ecological strategies in art from our new
Leave your comment online so the whole class can see your response.
Felix Guattari: Soft Subversions – chapters “Regimes, Pathways, Subjects” and “Beyond the
Psychoanalytic Unconscious” and interview in “A New Alliance is Possible”.
Bring in your
comment or questions about this for our discussion.
10-16
Felix Guattari: Chaosmosis: An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm (short excerpt from Participation:
Documents of Contemporary Art).
10-23
Continue from previous week.
Jean Luc-Nancy: The Inoperative Community
Contemporary Art).
(short excerpt from Participation: Documents of
Bring in your question or comment about this.
In class we might compare
this with Agamben’s The Coming Community and Derrida’s “The democracy to come” and
Blanchot’s The Unavowable Community
10-30
Jacques Ranciere: “Problems and Transformations in Critical Art” (2004).
Participation: Documents of Contemporary Art).
(excerpt from
I heard that Ranciere will actually visit TNUA
sometime soon, so pay attention to this reading.
11-6
Rancière – “The Emancipated Spectator”
11-13
Rancière – “The Future of the Image”
11-20
Rancière – Interviews.
11-27
Stephen Duncombe: Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy (to page 27).
(photocopy handouts)
Why is everyone praising this book?
12-4
Problems and promises of “the spectacle” and of pop culture.
Affect: a contemporary topic in theory.
Read
Michael Hardt:
“Forward: What Are Affects
Good For?” in The Affective Turn: Theorizing the Social
Bring in your questions and comments as always.
Negri” –authors of Empire.Affect, cont.
Turn: Theorizing the Social.
Patricia Ticineto Clough: “Introduction” to The Affective
In the previous generation, they saw a “rhetorical turn” or “linguistic
turn” or “interpretive turn” across most disciplines.
turn?
12-11
And yes, this is the same Hardt as in “Hardt and
Are we witnessing the emergence of a new
If so, what do theorists talk about when they talk about “affect”?
Affect, cont.
Kathleen Stewart: Ordinary Affects (to page 21).
A more personal poetic look at the
everyday life of affect.
12-18
Affect, cont.
Brian Massumi: Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation – Introduction
and chapter 1, “The Autonomy of Affect”.
Massumi translated Deleuze & Guattari and applies their
concept in interesting ways.
12-25
Merry Christmas.
It looks like we have class, so we can throw a Christmas morning culture party,
theoretically.
1-1-2010
Happy New Year.
Solar year that is.
No class.
Remember to schedule individual consultations
to discuss your projects if you haven’t already met with me.
1-8
Nicolaus Bourriarrd:
1-15
Final class.
“Relational Aesthetics”.
Photocopy handout.
Last chance to tell us what you think of all this.