Critical Cultural Theory I

June 11: The round of formal presentations concluded with Yasuo Kondo on Phenomenology and Yuuta Kuronuma on Louis Althusser. This was followed by a good discussion, or so it seemed to me, on Rivkin and Ryan’s “Feminist Paradigms,” with particular emphasis on R&R’s distinction between “essentialist” and “constructionist” feminisms.

Exploration in this context of the relation between essentialist feminist paradigms and essentialist responses to Euro-centric and colonial paradigms in the post-colonial world, including “nativism,” Aimé Césaire’s concept of negritude, constructions of Japanese identity in the 1920’s and 30’s (and 1990’s and 2000’s), and various manifestations of post-colonial nationalism. Passing reference to the nature of criticisms directed at these essentialist constructions by writers such as Frantz Fanon and Edward Said.

In the June 18 seminar we’ll follow these considerations with discussion of Adrienne Rich’s “Notes Toward a Politics of Location,” R&R’s “Starting with Zero: Basic Marxism,” and the brief passage on “Hegemony” by Antonio Gramsci.

New reading: Rivkin and Ryan, “The Class of 1968—Post-Structuralism par lui-même” (R&R pp. 333~57).

June 4: Presentations of a high quality continued: Structuralism by Sanae Higashiyama, Yuki Miyoshi, and Kazuya Moriguchi; Existentialism by Tomo Kirimura; Jean-Paul Sartre by Yoshimi Sato; Claude Levi-Strauss by Mihoko Hosono.

New reading: Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan, “Starting with Zero: Basic Marxism” (Rivkin and Ryan 231-42), and Antonio Gramsci, “Hegemony” (Rivkin and Ryan 277).

Following the final two presentations in this round in the June 11 seminar, we’ll turn to the texts assigned May 28. Sanae and Mihoko will lead discussion of Rivkin and Ryan’s “Feminist Paradigms” and Yoshimi and Yuri will lead discussion of Rich’s “Notes Toward a Politics of Location.” Students are encouraged to bring personal experience into their discussions of the texts.

May 28: Excellent overview of the key ideas of Freud by Hiroshi Usui and Yasumasa Toda. Homework: read and by June 11 be prepared to discuss Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan’s “Feminist Paradigms” and Adrienne Rich’s “Notes Toward a Politics of Location,” pp. 527-32 and 637-49 respectively in Literary Theory: An Anthology, edited by Rivkin and Ryan (Blackwell, 1998).

The hope is that we will finish the presentations in the June 4 seminar.

May 21: Ambitious and helpful presentation on Marx and Marxism by Yuri Kiyoshima and Mitsugu Maekawa.

May 14: Discussion of the “Power” section of McHoul and Grace’s Foucault Primer, with particular emphasis on the ways in which Foucault’s conceives power as “positive” rather than “negative.”

Homework: in preparation for upcoming work, prepare a formal presentation on one of the topics assigned as contextualization. These and the students who volunteered to address them are as follows:

1. Marx and Marxism (30 minutes): Yuri, Mitsugu
2. Freud and the unconscious (30 Minutes): Hiroshi, Yasu
3. Structuralism (20 minutes): Sanae, Yuki, Kazuya
4. Phenomenology (10-15 minutes): Yasuo
5. Existentialism (10-15 minutes): Tomo
6. Lévi-Strauss and structural anthropology (10-15 minutes): Mihoko
7. Sartre (10-15 minutes): Yoshimi
8. Althusser (10-15 minutes): Yuta

May 7: Continuation of the discussion of Madan Sarup’s chapter on Michel Foucault, with particular attention to Foucault’s concept of the relation of power and knowledge.

Homework: Read and be prepared to discuss the opening 19 pages of Alec McHoul and Wendy Grace’s chapter on power from A Foucault Primer: Discourse, Power and the Subject (Melbourne UP, 1993).

April 23: The first of three seminar sessions spent in consideration of the work of Michel Foucault. Discussion of Foucault’s genealogical (and Nietzschean) view of history, and the ways it varies from the Hegelian (dialectical, teleological, evolutionary) view still unconsciously accepted by many in places such as Japan.

My thanks to Yuri Kiyoshima for her curiosity, and her diagram, about Foucault’s understanding of power, which led to discussion of the ways that “ordinary people” such as us may, in the terms that emerged in the discussion, “change culture.” In my answer to student questions about this I drew upon a model of cultural change that is outlined here.

Thanks also to Yuuta Kuronuma for his perceptive comments and questions about Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble (1990), and Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont’s Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectual’s Abuse of Science (1999). (The links are to Amazon.com and will open in a new window.)

Note was made that students in this seminar are invited to Thursday-evening screenings for the Culture, Meaning, and Film seminar. Details and links about the first film to be screened, Federico Fellini’s Amarcord, are here. No penalty, of course, for not attending.

Homework: continue to read Madan Sarup’s discussion of Foucault, and take note of anything that seems engaging, or upsetting, or unclear.

April 16: Orientation sessions for students to select a kiso enshû III. Brief introduction to the course. Homework for those who elect to stay in this seminar: Read the first sections of Madan Sarup’s discussion of Michel Foucault.Have a look at the Foucault material on themargins.net links page.