GOVT 6676 - Critical Continental Thought

(crosslisted)
(also COML 6676)

Fall. 4 credits.

D. Rubenstein.

This seminar examines how the Freudian legacy lives on in several fields of inquiry relevant to political theory from ideological analysis to war and trauma studies, among other areas. We will begin with key texts of Freud, moving on to twentieth century “inheritors” such as Lacan, Laplanche, Althusser, Melanie Klein, D.W.Winnicott, and Groddeck. After a brief examination of some late twentieth century thinkers such as Derrida, Badiou and Mladen Dolar, we will query the status of psychoanalytic thought in contemporary political thought.

(PT)