SYLLABUS-IN-PROGRESS

Religious Studies 792 (Fall 2008): The (Theo-)Political: Recent Continental Approaches

This syllabus is posted at http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/danahol/792 and is also accessible by way of my home page (see below).  It will be updated periodically, and students in the class are asked to consult it regularly during the semester.

CLASS MEETINGS: Mondays, 2:30-4:30, University Hall 122

updated November 24, 2008


INSTRUCTOR: 

Dana Hollander, Department of Religious Studies, University Hall 109, (905) 525-9140, ext. 24759*, danahol@mcmaster.ca*,
http://univmail.cis.mcmaster.ca/~danahol/

*in your phone and e-mail messages, please let me know how I can reach you by phone

OFFICE HOUR: Mondays, 5-6 p.m., or by appointment


Course Description / Course Readings / Course Requirements   |   SCHEDULE: September / October / NovemberDecember


COURSE DESCRIPTION

The twofold purpose of this seminar is to shed light on the idea of "political theology" as it has been taken up in recent years in the wake of Carl Schmitt's 1922 elaboration of this notion, and to explore a strand of thinking about "the political" in recent French thought.  These two points of departure nevertheless lead to some important points of convergence.  Readings by and about Schmitt, Benjamin, Derrida, Nancy, Lacoue-Labarthe, Agamben


COURSE READINGS

Details for how to obtain each reading appear beside the individual readings on the course schedule below.


COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Grades will be based on Participation/Presentation(s) 50%, Written Work 50%.


September 8 - Organizational Meeting; Introduction


September 15, 22

Carl Schmitt, Political Theology (1922), trans. George Schwab [book available for purchase/on reserve], chaps. 1-3; The Concept of the Political (1927-1932), trans. George Schwab [book available for purchase/on reserve], pp. 19-79

Supplementary: Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy (1926), trans. Ellen Kennedy [book on reserve], pp. 1-50.

Background Reading on "Political Theology":

Hent de Vries, "Introduction: Before, Around, and Beyond the Theologico-Political" in de Vries and Lawrence E. Sullivan (eds.), Political Theologies. Public Religions in a Secular World (2006) [book on reserve]

Resources on Schmitt:

Heinrich Meier, "What Is Political Theology?" in Interpretation 30 (2003) [master copy in UH 104; or consult print journal in Mills Library]  (Also see: Meier, The Lesson of Carl Schmitt (1994), chap. 3 [book on reserve])

David Dyzenhaus, "Friend and Enemy: Schmitt and the Politics of Law," chap. 2 of Legality and Legitimacy. Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen and Hermann Heller in Weimar (1997) [book on reserve]

Ellen Kennedy, Constitutional Failure. Carl Schmitt in Weimar (2004), chaps. 3-4 [book on reserve]

September 22

GUEST SPEAKER: Arnd Wedemeyer (Princeton University) on "political theology" in the early and the postwar Schmitt.

An additional reading selection from Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth (1950), has been distributed to seminar participants.


September 29 (class cancelled for Rosh Hashanah), October 6; Friday, October 10, 5:45-7:45 (make-up class), UH 122; October 20

Walter Benjamin, "On the Critique of Violence" (1921) in Reflections, ed. Peter Demetz, trans. Edmund Jephcott (New York: Schocken, 1978) [handout]

presentation: Abigail Lapell

Giorgio Agamben, "The Messiah and the Sovereign: The Problem of Law in Walter Benjamin" (1992) in Potentialities [master copy of essay in UH 104; book on reserve]; State of Exception (2003) [book on reserve]; Homo Sacer (1995), 63-67 [handout/master copy in UH 104]

        presentation: Adam Langton

Jacques Derrida, Force of Law (1989/1994) in Acts of Religion [book available for purchase/on reserve/master copy in UH 104]

        presentation: Adrienne Batke

Background/Supplementary:

Samuel Weber, "Taking Exception to Decision," in Diacritics, vol. 22, no. 3-4 (Autumn-Winter 1992), repr. in Uwe Steiner (ed.), Walter Benjamin, 1892-1940, zum 100. Geburtstag (Bern: Peter Lang, 1992) [master copy in UH 104]


October 27, November 3

Derrida, "The Ends of Man" (1968) in Margins of Philosophy [book on reserve; master copy of "Les Fins de l'homme" in UH 104]

        presentation: Jessica Radin

Derrida, selections from Politics of Friendship (1994), chaps. 4-6. [book available for purchase/on reserve]

        presentation: Galen Crout, Mike Bartos 


November  10, 17, 24

(November 14 - Paper Proposal Due)

SOME COMBINATION/SELECTION FROM:

Jean-Luc Nancy/Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, contributions to Les fins de l'homme (1981; proceedings of the 1980 Cerisy colloquium on Derrida's work) [ordered for reserve]:  Nancy, "The Free Voice of Man"; Lacoue-Labarthe, "In the Name of..."; "'Political' Seminar" (including transcriptions of the "debates" that follow).  English translations in Retreating the Political, ed. Simon Sparks (1997) [book on reserve]

        presentation(s): Nick Holm, Matt MacLellan

Nancy/Lacoue-Labarthe, documents from the "Centre for Philosophical Research on the Political" (1980-84) originally collected in the books Rejouer le politique (1981) and Le retrait du politique (1983).  English translations in Retreating the Political, chaps. 5-9; plus Lacoue-Labarthe, "Transcendence Ends in Politics" in Typography, ed. Christopher Fynsk (1989) [book to be placed on reserve]

        presentation(s): Ben Shragge, Ryan Hardy

 

December 1

Derrida, Rogues. Two Essays on Reason (2003), chaps. 7-10. 

        presentation: Tema Smith


December 12 - Final Paper Due