Courses of Study 2013-2014 
    
    Mar 29, 2024  
Courses of Study 2013-2014 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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SHUM 4873 - Human/Animal/Machine

(crosslisted)
(also ENGL 4873 , FGSS 4873 , STS 4873 )
Fall. 4 credits.

Limited to 15 students.

J. Puar.

In this seminar we will be exploring the borders and boundaries of the construction of “the human” and its triangulated attendants, “the animal” and “the machine.” We will take as our orientation Gayatri Spivak’s groundbreaking query, “Can the subaltern speak?” The 1988 publication of the article with this title has generated prolific feminist, postcolonial, Marxist, and critical race theoretical work examining the politics of poststructuralist knowledge claims and production. However, as has been recently articulated by a range of thinkers, the limits of a poststructuralist epistemological corrective-in certain historical and geopolitical locations—have perhaps been broached. In the context of current global conditions of increasing economic stratification and distress, the dissimulation of politically coherent positions, and the growing disillusionment with liberal democratic ideals, the realms of the social and the political seem haphazardly, arbitrarily, and yet systematically “working” through an anthropomorphic vision of politics that takes agency and voice to be its central determinants.



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