GOVT 6750

Gramsci and Cultural Politics

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2015-2016.

The modern or postmodern, and increasingly global, capitalist system rules by overt violence and coercion in tandem with what Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) called the "non-coercive coercion" of "cultural hegemony."  This seminar has two basic aims: to introduce the basic political, theoretical, historical, and cultural writings of Gramsci  (which also requires attention to his main sources, e.g., Croce, Dante, Lenin, Marx, Machiavelli); and then to trace main directions of the Gramscian legacy in philosophy, political theory and practice, and cultural theory and practice (notably filmmaking).  This legacy includes the works of Aijaz Ahmad, Louis Althusser, Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Norberto Bobbio, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, and Pier-Paolo Pasolini.  Our main primary texts will be Gramsci's pre-prison Writings, selections from his prison notebooks, and his letters from prison.

When Offered Fall.

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