GERST 1170

FWS: Marx, Nietzsche, Freud

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2023-2024. Courses of Study 2024-2025 is scheduled to publish mid-June.

A basic understanding of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud is a prerequisite for participating in critical debates in the humanities and social sciences. Our seminar will explore key terms in the revolutionary models of critical analysis these thinkers pioneered: historical materialism, post-metaphysical philosophy, and psychoanalysis.  This will mean articulating points of contrast as well as convergence.  Discussions and writing exercises will focus on texts that created the discursive framework for critiquing society and culture today.  Our method will proceed from the premise that critical reading, thinking, and writing are inseparable moments in the same operation of critique.  The question that guides that method will be: Do alternative ways of thinking exist in opposition to the ones we view as natural, inevitable, or universal?

When Offered Fall, Spring.

Satisfies Requirement First-Year Writing Seminar.

Comments No knowledge of German is expected.

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