The Ends of Empire: Narratives of Culmination and Decline in Philosophy and Literature
GRST 240
Spring 2013
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
COL 221 |
| Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory |
| Course Cluster: Christianity Studies |
This course aims to theorize and contextualize current left- and right-wing discourses on empire in decline and to pay particular attention to the narrative techniques deployed by philosophers and writers to conjure the specter of decline. Because decline is conceptually inseparable and at times even indistinguishable from culmination, it resists easy valorization. To understand decline, its story must be told; it only becomes distinguishable from culmination or fulfillment and, as well, from fall or collapse, in being given narrative form. Both the philosophical and literary texts studied in this course tell stories of culmination and decline that reflect on one another in surprising ways. Thus, we will read them in comparative fashion. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA GRST |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Required books:
G.W.F. Hegel, INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: (Hackett) ISBN 0872200566
Oswald Spengler, THE DECLINE OF THE WEST (Vintage) ISBN 9781400097005
Walter Benjamin, ORIGIN OF THE GERMAN TRAGIC DRAMA (Verso) ISBN 9781844673483
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, EMPIRE (Harvard University Press) ISBN 9780674006713
W.G. Sebald, THE RINGS OF SATURN (New Directions) ISBN 9780811214131
Christoph Ransmayr, THE LAST WORLD (Grove) ISBN 9780802134585
J.M. Coetzee, WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS (Penguin) ISBN 9780143116929
Samuel Beckett, ENDGAME AND ACT WITHOUT WORDS (Grove) ISBN 9780802144393
Additional readings by Francis Fukuyama, Fredric Jameson, Theodor Adorno, and Karl Marx will be on e-reserve.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Three papers |
| Instructor(s): Plass,Ulrich Times: ..T.R.. 02:40PM-04:00PM; Location: FISK414; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 19 | | SR major: 3 | JR major: 3 | | |
| Seats Available: -3 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 4 | JR non-major: 3 | SO: 3 | FR: 3 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 2 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 2 |
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