WGS.234
The Invention of French Theory: A History of Transatlantic Intellectual Life since 1945
Spring 2012
In the decades following the Second World War, a cluster of extraordinary French thinkers were widely translated and read in American universities. Their works were soon labeled as "French Theory." Why would sharing the same nationality make authors such as Lacan, Cixous, Derrida, Foucault or Debord, ambassadors of a specifically "French" theory? The course will explore the maze of transatlantic intellectual debates since 1945 and the heyday of French existentialism. We will study the debates on communism, decolonization, neo‐liberalism, gender, youth culture and mass media. This course is taught in English.
Readings
- Kaplan, Alice. “Justice in Hindsight.” Chapter 13 in The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach . University of Chicago Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780226424156.
- Camus, Albert, and Arthur Koestler. “Reflection on the Guillotine.” Extract from Réflexions sur la peine Capitale . Calmann-Lévy, 1957.
- Foucault, Michel, and R. Hurley. “Part Four: The Deployment of Sexuality. Chapter 2: Method.” In The History of Sexuality. Volume I: An Introduction . Translated by Robert Hurley. Viking, 1979, pp. 92–102. ISBN: 9780713910940.
- Barthes, Roland. “The Great Family of Man,” and “Myth Today.” Extracts from Mythologies . Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972, pp. 100–2 and 109–12. ISBN: 9780374521509.
- Lacan, Jacques. Extract (on the language of self) from Écrits: A Selection . Routledge, 2007, pp. 96–7. ISBN: 9780415255462.
- de Beauvoir, Simone. “Biological Data.” Chapter 1 in The Second Sex . Translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier. Vintage, 2011, pp. 21–4. ISBN: 9780307277787.
- Blanchot, Maurice. The Unavowable Community . Translated by Pierre Joris. Station Hill Press, 1988, pp. 9–12, 24–6 and 54–7. ISBN: 9781581771046.
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗Historical OpenCourseWare
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.