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This course presents a distinct view of technology and technological change. As we situate technology within various philosophies of the event we learn to appreciate a whole range of life techniques for ethical – good – living in the event of technology. This course gives a solid introduction into the philosophy of Ereignis. The course is designed for anyone interested in ethics, philosophy of technology, contemporary psychoanalysis, or cultural analysis.

This course aims to unpack the developments of ethical thought in continental European philosophy (particularly in France) after and in response to Nietzsche’s critique of morality which appears in his Genealogy of Morality and Beyond Good and Evil. The main conceptual distinction that I’m going to elaborate is between morality and ethics. And the main problematic is that how can we have a good life in a world in which there is no transcendent moral principle. Nietzsche’s critique of morality clears the space for French philosophers to think about a possibility of an immanent ethics.

Wallace Stevens’s novelty remains obscured by certain critics and philosophers who themselves oppose one another. The former desire Stevens a national figure of Americana; others emphasize their own aesthetic theory. Most shun philosophical implications which place the poetry in service of philosophy. Stevens’s ‘theōria’ holds implications beyond conventional truth disputes. This seminar explores theōria as contra-criticism which views technological determinism as a most potent critic of the imagination. Thus Stevens’s “poetry itself” and “a poetry of thought” offer ethical considerations for humans under the reins of technic.

Modernist literary works coincide with paradigmatic changes in humanistic and scientific orientations. Multiple fields as diverse as philosophy, physics, music, painting, literature and history exhibit a marked renewal as far as the pursuit of cognitive goals is concerned. Religion and theology are replaced by a radical search for meaning and unity in the midst of apparent civilizational disunity and chaos. Through stylistic and structural experiments the modernist literary texts reflects the modern – late 19th and 20 & 21st century – experience of disorientation and meaninglessness while engaging in a cognitive effort to gain unity. This effort results in a metaphysical pursuit which in some cases is conducive to an intense transcendental vision and in other cases leads to ironic disparagement.Last date to register: 10 October, 2023

This seminar explores our relationship with texts, specifically in the moments we call reading and writing. And opens the possibility that reading and writing are not so much acts but approaches. It posits every encounter with a text as one possibly haunted by blindness, even premised on a certain unknowability. Much like love: if love is to be an openness to the possibility of another. More than that, every encounter, even when done with as much care as possible, always also transforms the text. Where the one who reads, who writes — who is already translating when doing so — is always also potentially a traitor.Last date to register: 2 November, 2023