CLS4010

Recognitions

Alexander Garc'a Düttmann

12 points
* 2 hours per week
* Second semester
* Clayton
* Prohibitions: CRT4010

Objectives On the successful completion of this subject students should have a cogent awareness of the valencies of `recognition' in the conceptual field of contemporary ethics and politics. Successful students should have mastered a critical understanding of the theorists to whose works they will have been introduced. In addition, students should have demonstrated an ability to interpret these theories, and to evaluate their arguments in lucid prose.

Synopsis In this seminar we will discuss issues related to the discourses of revolution and of multiculturalism. We will introduce a new definition of recognition, a decisive notion in the current debates around multiculturalism and its impact on ethics and politics. To the `politics of recognition' we will oppose a different politics, a politics based on a recognition that maintains the tension between the social agents rather than dissolving it. We will use the work of Adorno, Benjamin, Heidegger, Marcuse, Habemas and Taylor.

Assessment Seminar paper (3000 words): 30%
* Essay (6000 words): 70%

Prescribed texts

Benjamin W Illuminations Glasgow
Guttman A and others Multiculturalism and the politics of recognition Princeton
Marcuse H One dimensional man Beacon

Recommended reading

Adorno T W `Meditations on metaphysics' in Negative dialectics Routledge
Taylor C The ethics of authenticity Harvard U P