This module involves guided study of two or three major works of twentieth-century German critical theory or philosophy, focusing each year on the work of two or more related thinkers, such as Benjamin, Adorno, Horkheimer, Habermas, Sloterdijk. Indicative topics include: critique of enlightenment, philosophy of history, the non-identical, dialectics, materialism, reification, freedom, communicative reason and the philosophical response to the Shoah.
The aims of this module are to:
Upon successful completion of this module, students will be able to:
Comprehend, reconstruct and interpret philosophical arguments, and situate these arguments in the context of the history of philosophy.
The module includes:
This module will be taught by means of a mix of lectures and seminars, supplemented by individual tutorials and private study. Emphasis is placed on seminar-based discussion.
| Definitive UNISTATS Category | Indicative Description | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled learning and teaching | Seminars/lectures: 10 taught sessions (2.5 hours each) | 25 |
| Scheduled learning and teaching | Group and individual tutorials (one scheduled hour plus office hours) | 1 |
| Scheduled learning and teaching | Directed and Independent Learning | 274 |
| Total (number of credits x 10) | 300 | |
The assessment strategy is designed to test a student's ability to meet the module's learning outcomes. Summative assessment involves one piece of written work:
The skills required to prepare this assessed elements will be developed in a variety of formative activities throughout the module, notably through class discussion, feedback on in-class presentations, and individual tutorials. Preparation includes a scheduled tutorial with the module tutor.
| Learning Outcome | Assessment Strategy |
|---|---|
| Understand the distinctive features, issues and problems of German Critical Theory through knowledge of key texts, informed by critical awareness of current debates in the field. | Assessed formatively through class discussion, presentations and tutorials, and summatively through the two pieces of individual written work |
| Assess philosophical concepts of the thinkers studied. | Assessed formatively through class discussion, presentations and tutorials, and summatively through the two pieces of individual written work |
| Assess competing interpretations of the debates between the main thinkers studied. | Assessed formatively through class discussion, presentations and tutorials, and summatively through the two pieces of individual written work |
| Assess competing interpretations of the debates between the main thinkers studied. | Assessed formatively through class discussion, presentations and tutorials, and summatively through the two pieces of individual written work |
| Comprehend, reconstruct and interpret philosophical arguments, and situate these arguments in the context of the history of philosophy. | Assessed formatively through class discussion, presentations and tutorials, and summatively through the two pieces of individual written work |
| Description of Assessment | Definitive UNISTATS Categories | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | 5000 to 6000 word essay | 100 |
| Total (to equal 100%) | 100% | |
It IS a requirement that the major category of assessment is passed in order to achieve an overall pass for the module.
Theodor W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics (1966; trans. E.B. Ashton London: Routledge, 1973).
Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project (Cambridge MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1999)
Jürgen Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action, 2 vols (1981; trans. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984)
Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944; trans. Stanford University Press, 2002)
Peter Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason (1983; trans. Verso, 1988).
Theodor W. Adorno, Lectures on Negative Dialectics (1965/6; Cambridge: Polity, 2008).
Theodor W. Adorno and Walter Benjamin, The Complete Correspondence, 1928-1940 (Cambridge: Polity, 1998)
Susan Buck-Morss, The Origin of Negative Dialectics; Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin and the Frankfurt Institute (New York: Free Press, 1977).
N. C. Gibson and A. Rubin, (eds.), Adorno: A Critical Reader, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002).
Tom Huhn (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Adorno (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
Fredric Jameson, Late Marxism: Adorno, or, the Persistence of Dialectic (London and New York: Verso, 1990).
Jarvis, S., 1998, Adorno: A Critical Introduction, Cambridge: Polity, 1998).
Martin Jay, Adorno (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984).
I. Macdonald and K. Ziarek (eds.), Adorno and Heidegger: Philosophical Questions (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007).
Max Pensky, (ed.), The Actuality of Adorno: Critical Essays on Adorno and the Postmodern (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997).
Brian O'Connor, ed, The Adorno Reader (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2000).
------------------- Adorno's Negative Dialectic: Philosophy and the Possibility of Critical Rationality (Cambridge MA and London: MIT, 2004).
Gillian Rose, The Melancholy Science: An Introduction to the Thought of Theodor W. Adorno (London: Macmillan, 1978).
A. Benjamin and P. Osborne (eds), Walter Benjamin's Philosophy: Destruction and Experience (London and New York: Routledge, 1994/2nd ed. Manchester: Clinamen, 2000).
Howard Caygill, Walter Benjamin: The Colour of Experience (London and New York: Routledge, 1998).
B. Hansen and A. Benjamin eds, Walter Benjamin and Romanticism (London and New York: Continuum, 2004).
John McCole, Walter Benjamin and the Antinomies of Tradition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993).