16206 PHI 6934-004 PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE Dr. Ofelia Schutte

16207 PHI 6934-021 (WST) Phone: 974-0981

W 6:00-8:50 p.m., FAO 196 Office: FAO 153

3 credits, Spring 2004 oschutte@cas.usf.edu

Syllabus, page 1

This course is an interdisciplinary study of knowledge, identity, gender, and culture focusing on texts by poststructuralist, postcolonial, and feminist writers. The readings are organized in three parts, outlined below.

REQUIRED TEXTS

Lyotard. The Postmodern Condition. (PC)

Foucault. The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction. (HS)

Kristeva. The Portable Kristeva: Updated Edition [2002], ed. K. Oliver. (PK)

McClaren. Feminism, Foucault, and Embodied Subjectivity. (FF)

Course Packet, available at Pro-Copy (988-5900, 5219 E. Fowler). (CP)

Reserved Readings, USF Library (RR)

REQUIREMENTS

Two graduate-level critical or analytical papers on the course readings and related subjects are required. Papers should be approximately 12 pages in length. Class attendance and participation are expected. Participation does not mean mere attendance. It refers to active engagement in discussion of the assignments and occasionally doing a brief presentation of some aspect of the readings. A short class presentation on the final paper is required.

FINAL GRADE

First paper 40%; final paper 45%; class participation and presentation 15%.

SPRING SEMESTER OFFICE HOURS

Office hours will be held on Tuesdays from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. and by appointment.

COURSE ORGANIZATION

The course consists of three parts. Part I addresses the question: Is there a culture of modernity? What does it mean to speak of culturally situated knowledge? We analyze various representations of truth, power, and knowledge in modernity and postmodernity, along with their impact on some gender issues. Part II addresses a feminist Foucauldian analysis of the “social construction” of sex and gender and Kristeva’s psychoanalytical approach to female sexuality, desire, and cultural difference. Part III focuses on postcolonial analyses of cultural, racial, and gender differences.

PHI 6934 Spring 2004 Philosophy of Culture Dr. Schutte

Syllabus, page 2

GRADUATE CATALOG POLICIES

The Graduate Catalog’s policy on the “I” (Incomplete) grade will be observed. “I” grades may be awarded at the discretion of the instructor only if the student is passing the course and if there is sufficient reason why the requirements could not be completed. A written contract for an incomplete grade is required prior to the assignment of this grade. The contract describes the work to be completed and the date by which it must be submitted. The contract must be approved and signed by the course instructor.

All other policies in the Catalog will be observed.

ACCESS FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

Please notify the instructor (974-0981) if you have special needs.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

To understand the information and arguments presented in the course readings;

To develop skills in formulating and evaluating arguments and other less formal ways of reasoning as these are presented in class discussions and assignments;

To become familiar with the work of important contemporary philosophers and writers in the context of a critical feminist analysis of their works;

To produce original scholarly work and to present it in both oral and written forms as required in the final class presentation and final paper;

To reflect critically on major issues facing us as members of culturally diverse societies in an interactive world, giving special attention to historical, economic, and political variables in the construction of sex and gender and to alternative paradigms of well-being and justice.

COURSE FORMAT

The format of the class will be a combination of instructor-initiated and student-initiated discussion. In addition, background lectures will provide the context for the discussion and analysis of the readings especially in the case of those readings that are more difficult to access without the benefit of specialized training. As stated above, student participation is both welcome and expected.

PHI 6934 Spring 2004 Philosophy of Culture Dr. Schutte

Syllabus, page 3

SCHEDULE OF READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS

1/7 Introduction

1/14 Horkheimer and Adorno, “The Culture Industry,” from Dialectics of

Enlightenment, pp. 120-168 (CP); Habermas, “Modernity versus Postmodernity” (CP)

1/21 Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, pp. xxiii-xxv and 3-82.

1/28 Lyotard, PC, pp. 71-82 and Foreword by Jameson, pp. vii-xx.

Foucault, selections from Power/Knowledge (RR)

2/4 Foucault, HS, pp. 3-73

2/11 Foucault, HS, pp. 77-159

2/18 McClaren, FF, entire book

2/25 Kristeva, PK, selected readings

First paper due in class today.

3/3 Kristeva, PK, selected readings

3/10 Spring Break

3/17 Kristeva, PK selected readings.

3/24 Said, Introduction to Orientalism, pp. 1-28 and Ch 3, Projects, pp. 73-92 (RR)

Said, 1994 Afterword to Orientalism, pp. 329-352 (RR)

Said, “Traveling Theory,” from The Edward Said Reader, pp. 195-217 (RR)

3/31 Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (RR)

Spivak, “Culture,” from A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (CP)

Bhabha, selection from The Location of Culture (RR)

4/7 Cornel West, “The New Cultural Politics of Difference” (CP)

Bell hooks, “Postmodern Blackness” and “Culture to Culture” (CP)

4/14 Hopenhayn, “Postmodernism and Neoliberalism in Latin America” (CP)

Richard, “Cultural Peripheries: Latin America and Postmodernist Decentering”

(CP)

PHI 6934 Spring 2004 Philosophy of Culture Dr. Schutte

Syllabus, page 4

4/14 continued: Class presentations, if needed

4/21 Class presentations; conclusion

4/ 26 Final paper due at 3:30 p.m. in FAO 153/155.

Addendum: Bibliographical sources for scheduled readings

1/14 Jürgen Habermas, “Modernity versus Postmodernity,” New German Critique 22 (1981), 3-14. From A Postmodern Reader, ed. Joseph Natoli and Linda Hutcheon (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993), pp. 91-104.

1/14 Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, “The Culture Industry,” from Dialectics of Enlightenment , pp. 120-168.

1/28 Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge, ed. C. Gordon (NY: Pantheon, 1980).

3/24 Edward Said, Orientalism, (NY: Vintage, 1979).

3/24 The Edward Said Reader, ed. M. Bayoumi and A. Rubin (NY: Vintage, 2000).

3/31 Gayatri Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), pp. 271-313.

3/31 Gayatri Spivak, from “Culture” in A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1999).

3/31 Homi Bhabha, from The Location of Culture (NY: Routledge, 1994).

4/7 bell hooks, “Postmodern Blackness,” Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics (Boston: South End Press, 1990), 23-31. From A Postmodern Reader, pp. 147-171.

4/7 bell hooks, “Culture to Culture,” Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics (Boston: South End Press, 1990), pp. 123-133.

4/7 Cornel West, “The New Cultural Politics of Difference,” The Identity in Question, ed, John Rajchman (New York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 510-518.

4/14 Martin Hopenhayn, “Postmodernism and Neoliberalism in Latin America,” The Postmodern Debate in Latin America, ed. John Beverley, José Oviedo, and Michael Aronna (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), pp. 217-222.

4/10 Nelly Richard, “Cultural Peripheries: Latin America and Postmodernist Decentering,” in The Postmodern Debate in Latin America, pp.217-222.