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Winter Term 2011/12

For more detailed information on the SCM Study Group and the Study Group's sessions see below.

Convenors: Ralph Buchenhorst, Daniele Cantini, James Thompson

Abstract:

We would like to introduce key texts of the three generations of the so called Frankfurt School and add to this corpus some aspects of the discussion on the possible utilization of elements of Critical Theory in contemporary social sciences and social anthropology in particular, literary criticism, and ethics.

Although Critical theory in literary studies, social sciences and philosophy still is a dominant force and an essential part of graduate education, it still seems to confuse by much of its jargon-ridden style. On the other hand its critical potential is questioned in post-modern scenarios where the standpoint of critique itself is under permanent deconstruction. By reading and discussing classical and contemporary texts from key authors such as Th. W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, Martin Jay and Fredric Jameson we want to clear up essential concepts of the two main strands of Critical Theory, i.e. critical hermeneutics of cultural artefacts and symbolic expressions such as literature, music, visual arts and architecture, and critical social theory  as a form of self-reflective knowledge that is able to reduce the scope of domination executed by institutions.

At the same time we would like to test the Critical Theories ability to cope with contemporary trends in social theory and tangible social evolution such as globalization, migration, marginalization, symbolic communication and postcolonialism.

• Theodor Adorno: "Education After Auschwitz".
  Text source: http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/frankfurt/auschwitz/AdornoEducation.pdf   
• Walter Benjamin: "On the Concept of History".
  Text source: http://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/CONCEPT2.html   
• Jürgen Habermas: "Modernity - An Incomplete Project". Modernity Versus Post-modernity”. In New German Critique, 22. Winter 1981.
• Axel Honneth: "Patterns of Intersubjective Recognition: Love, Rights, and Solidarity". Chapter 5 of Axel Honneth: The Struggle for Recognition. The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts. 1995. Polity Press.
• James Clifford: "Introduction: Partial Truths". Writing Culture. The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Edited by James Clifford and George E. Marcus. University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London.
• Paul Rabinow, George E. Marcus, James D. Faubion and Tobias Rees: Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary. Duke University Press. Durham London, 2008.
• Thijs Lijster: "History, Experience, and Politics: An Interview with Martin Jay". In Krisis, Journal for contemporary philosophy. 2010, Issue 1. Interview 91-101. www.krisis.eu
• Fredric Jameson: "Fear and Loathing in Globalization". In New Left Review 23, Sep.-Oct. 2003, 105-114
• Richard Rorty: "Contingency, irony, and solidarity". Cambridge  University Press. 1989

Additional texts:

• Fredic James: "Globalization and Political Strategy" In New Left Review 4, Jul.-Aug. 2000, 49-68
• Axel Honneth: "Reification: A recognition-theoretical view". The Tanner lectures on human values. University of California, Berkeley, March 14-16, 2005.

Reading Group „Latin-American thought“

The aim of the reading group is to read texts of Latin-American thinkers dealing with the particular situation of societies in the Ibero-American linguistic and cultural realm. The main issues are the colonial past, questions of the specific cultural identity and alternative representations of social and epistemic orders in South-America. While many of the texts are in Spanish we will also consider English and German translations. The reading group is open for everyone who is interested!

Time: Wednesdays 12-2 p.m.
Venue: Graduate School "Society and Culture in Motion", Reichardtstr. 6, seminar room
Contact person: Stefan Knauss
e-mail: stefan.knauss@scm.uni-halle.de

Since 2005 the so-called "responsibility to protect" has been recognized as a  justification for humanitarian intervention, and which was most recently  implemented in the Libyan conflict. Whereas proponents of the responsibility to  protect see in it the cosmopolitan evolution of international law, its critics  fear an attempt to make warlike encroachments into the sovereignty of states  respectable again. This seminar intends to investigate the structure,  plausibility, as well as the conflicts within the justification of the new  interventionist measures.

Time: Tuesday 12-2 p.m.
Venue: Graduate School "Society and Culture in Motion, Reichardtstr. 6, seminar room
Contact persons: Dr. James Thompson and Stefan Knauss M.A.
e-mail: james.thompson@scm.uni-halle.de and stefan.knauss@scm.uni-halle.de

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