All Courses
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23F Revolution: Theory and Practice
B. Bennett: GETR 3559-002, MW 1400-1515 Revolution: Theory and Practice “The revolution will not be televised . . .”—Gil Scott-Heron People tend to understand the notion of “revolution” very broadly, probably because it excites them to think that they themselves are living in revolutionary times. Today, for example, we speak commonly of an “internet revolution” or an “information revolution.” In this course, however, we will try to be uncompromisingly critical in our examination and in our application of the concept of revolution. One principal question to be asked is: Can I ever be “objective” about a true revolution? Is it really a revolution if I can form a comfortable idea of how it is shaped and where it is headed? Even in the case of instances from the past, must a true revolution not disorient me ethically here and now? Must revolution, or its mere possibility, not open before me the abyss of the strictly Unknown? One obvious historical focus for the asking of such questions is the American “Revolution” (which was not so called at its time); and we will come back on several occasions to texts and issues involved in our eighteenth-century heritage. In the general area of political revolution, we will deal in detail with two other principal examples, to which the title “revolution,” in the strictest possible sense, probably cannot be denied, the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution. But our approach will be somewhat heterodox: we will consider the French Revolution through the lens of two German plays, by Georg Büchner and Arthur Schnitzler; and we will look at the Russian Revolution mainly by way of excerpts from Trotsky’s history of it. The range of the course, however, extends far beyond the political. We will open with a discussion of the American Black social movement, starting from the BPP, a “revolution” about which practically no serious question admits a clear answer. And as the semester progresses, we will discuss scientific revolution (Kuhn, Feyerabend, Heisenberg) and various forms of social-intellectual revolution, including: Marx and socialism; Nietzsche’s “new philosophers”; Freud and psychoanalysis; Wittgenstein and philosophies of language; feminism and Wittig’s Lesbian revolution; modernist art and poetry considered (with Kristeva) as a revolution; and perhaps more, depending on students’ wishes and ideas. Student participation will be crucial, not only in contributing to discussion but also in shaping the course material. Requirements: one midterm paper on an assigned topic; one longer final paper on a topic agreed upon by each student and the instructor.
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23F Ancient and Modern Drama
B. Bennett: GETR 3559-001, MW 1600-1715 Ancient and Modern Dramatic Theater This is a course in the history of Western theatrical drama and, as such, also a course in the history of magic, true magic, not mere legerdemain. “Theatrical drama” is a category of objects which are, at the same time, works of more or less narrative poetry and ritual structures needing to be realized in the form of public performance. The history of theatrical drama, thus understood, is thoroughly discontinuous. The earliest instance—and as far as we know, the origination of the form—is the development of various dramatic types in ancient Attica from the 6th to the early 4th century B.C. But in Europe, the next appearance of the form, in its strict definition, does not occur until the great period of national drama from the late 15th to the end of the 17th century in England, Spain, France, and the Netherlands. Then there is a short period of prophetically modern drama in Germany around 1800. And finally, from the late 19th century on, an enormous Europe-wide theatrical drama erupts, curiously enough, right in the middle of what by rights should have been exclusively the age of the social novel. The key concept in understanding how this history works is magic, a concept we will develop and discuss and clarify in relation to texts of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Calderon, Molière, and several later authors. Requirements: one midterm paper on an assigned topic; one longer final paper on a topic agreed upon by each student and the instructor.