Course Schedule:

Week 1

Key Concepts: Interpellation; violence; race and racism; gender and sexuality; the body and the discursive/practical constitution of subjectivity; the politics of speech

Mon, 01/04:

Film—Pulp-Fiction

Louis Althusser—“Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays

Etienne Balibar—“Racism as Universalism,” in Masses, Classes, and Ideas

Judith*Butler—Introduction: “On Linguistic Vulnerability,” in Excitable Speech

Tues, 01/05:

Film—Pulp-Fiction

Judith Butler—Ch. 1: “Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire,” in Gender Trouble

Angela Davis—“The Approaching Obsolescence of Housework,” in Women, Race, and Class

Noel Manganyi—“The Body and Racism,” in Alienation and the Body in Racist Society

Wed, 01/06:

Key Concepts: Interpellation; violence and the body; discipline; sexuality

Eldridge Cleaver—“The Primeval Mitosis” and “Convalescence,” in Soul on Ice

*Discussion Forum Responses due 11:59pm Tues., Jan. 5 and Thurs., Jan 7

*Essay #1 due 11:59pm Fri, Jan. 8

Week 2

Key Concepts: Interpellation; violence and the body; discipline; sexuality

Mon, 01/11:

Film—Reservoir Dogs

Judith*Butler—Ch. 1: “Burning Acts, Injurious Speech,” in Excitable Speech

Judith Butler—Ch. 2: “Prohibition, Psychoanlaysis, and the Production of the Heterosexual Matrix,” in Gender Trouble

Tues, 01/12:

Film—Reservoir Dogs

Michel Foucault—Part 1, Ch. 1: “The Body of the Condemned,” in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

Wed, 01/13:

Mari Matsuda—”The Public Response to Rascist Speech,” in Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment

*Discussion Forum Responses due 11:59pm Tues., Jan. 12 and Thurs, Jan. 14

*Essay #2 du 11:59pm Fri., Jan. 15

Week 3

Key Concepts: The act; violence and the body; sexuality; orientalism

Mon, 01/18:

Film—Kill Bill, Vol. 1

Judith Butler—Ch. 3: “Subversive Bodily Acts” and Conclusion: “From Parody to Politics,” in Gender Trouble

Tues, 01/19:

Film—Kill Bill, Vol. 1

Luce Irigaray—”Women on the Market” and “Commodities among Themselves,” in This Sex Which is Not One

Wed, 01/20:

Edward Said—Ch. 1: “The Scope of Orientalism,” in Orientalism

*Discussion Forum Responses due 11:59pm Tues., Jan. 19 and Thurs., Jan. 21

*Essay #3 due 11:59pm Fri., Jan. 22

*Essay Revision Portfolio due 11:59pm Sun., Jan. 24

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