The Winter School has now concluded.
When: June 20 - July 22, 2011
Where: Law Building, Pelham St
University of Melbourne ( map )
You can see the cost of enrolment here . The fees are the same for attendance and distance enrolment. Once you submit your details using our online enrolment form you will be asked to choose to pay online using paypal, mail us a cheque or to pay on arrival in the first class you attend. Distance enrolments can only use paypal - please go to the distance enrolment page for distance enrolment.
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Day Courses
Each day course runs for 10 hours in total and consists of one two-hour class per day for five days
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Room |
Week 1: Monday-Friday 3-5pm |
Nietzsche and The Birth of Tragedy: The Dionysiac Critique of Modernity |
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Room |
Week 2: Monday-Friday 3-5pm |
What is Phenomenology? |
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Week 3: Monday-Friday 3-5pm |
There will be no day classes in week three. | |
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Room |
Week 4: Monday-Friday 3-5pm |
A Reading of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil |
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Room |
Week 5: Monday-Friday 3-5pm |
An Introduction to Aristotle |
Evening Courses
Each evening course runs for 10 hours in total and consists of one two-hour class per week for five weeks.
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Room |
Monday 6-8pm |
Heidegger's Being and Time |
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Room |
Tuesday 6-8pm |
Sartre and Sexuality |
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Wednesday 6-8pm |
Marcel Gauchet: Religion and Modernity |
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Room |
Thursday 6-8pm |
Alfred Hitchcock and the Unstable Image |
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Friday 6-8pm |
There will be no evening class on Friday night. |
Nietzsche and The Birth of Tragedy: The Dionysiac Critique of Modernity
Lecturer: Paul Daniels
Monday-Friday 3-5pm, June 20 - June 24
The Birth of Tragedy (1872) was Nietzsche’s first work. It aims to grasp the philosophical significance of Greek tragedy and how this offers a creative, aesthetic basis for a critique of modernity. Tragedy presents its audience with a worldview where fate triumphs over virtue, where heroic action leads to self-destruction, and where nature must revenge all misdeeds committed against it. This tension between the human subject and his relationship with life posed the most important philosophical questions for Nietzsche: is life worth living? How are we to reconcile the tragic truth to existence with the will to live? How are we to address the decline of modernity by reference to the tragic age of the Greeks?
The Birth of Tragedy represents one of Nietzsche’s most ambitious philosophical projects. Through a combination of philology, history and philosophy, he endeavoured to investigate the pre-Socratic culture of tragedy, the account of which he proposed would instigate a cultural revolution in his own time. This course will provide an account of The Birth of Tragedy, focusing on Nietzsche’s use of mythology, his transformation of the Will as understood by Schopenhauer, the discovery that aesthetics can constitute a first philosophy, and the all important worldview of music and tragedy as the medium whereby the terrors and horrors of existence could be simultaneously known and affirmed.
For all its complexity and the nascent examples of themes in his later philosophy, The Birth of Tragedy often receives only cursory attention in scholarship. This is not in keeping with Nietzsche’s own engagement with his first book. For Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy occupied a special place among his works: at times he repudiated its approach, yet the themes of tragedy, music, Socrates and the Dionysiac would reappear in varying manifestations throughout his philosophy. And in his final writings he described it as his first revaluation of all values, a work which emboldened its readers (and author), “beyond pity and terror, to realise in oneself the eternal joy of becoming – that joy which also encompasses joy in destruction.”
This course will be taught at an introductory to intermediate level. My intent is to introduce the text via Nietzsche's biography and the thinkers he studied. Some background in philosophy is recommended, though no knowledge of specific thinkers will be presupposed.
The recommended translation of The Birth of Tragedy is by Ronald Speirs in the recent Cambridge series of Nietzsche's works. The Kaufmann translation is wonderful in some of its formulations, but there are also inaccuracies and it is now somewhat outdated. The Penguin edition, translated by Shaun Whiteside, is quite a good translation and somewhat more affordable.
Monday: The Year 1872 – Europe, history and philosophy at the time of The Birth of Tragedy
What is Phenomenology?
Lecturer: David Rathbone
Monday-Friday 3-5pm, June 27 - July 1
1. Phenomenology as background: Hegel
2. Phenomenology as foreground: Husserl
3. Phenomenology as ground: Heidegger
4. Phenomenology and the Other: Levinas
5. Michel Henri's “Material Phenomenology”
This course aims to give students an overview of Phenomenology, the philosophical doctrine that being and appearance are related not accidentally, but essentially. Although Hegelians and Husserlians often repudiate one another’s usage of the term ‘phenomenology’, an adequate account of phenomenology in fact needs to take into account not only Husserl's description of pure appearance freed from all ontological commitment by the phenomenological reduction, but also Hegel’s phenomenology of mind as the account of the inner experience of the unfolding of spirit. Both are differing but related attempts to find ways to describe what Kant called homo phenomenon (the mind in the world as it appears to and is known by us) without recourse to the Kantian faith in an unknowable and indescribable nous. Heidegger's rethinking of the meaning of appearance, Levinas' insistence on the meaning of the face, and Henri's challenge to the dominance of transcendence will also be explored, as we address the question of the future of Phenomenology.
Texts:
Hegel
Phenomenology of Mind, preface
Science of Logic, volume one, book two, section two, chapter two: “Appearance”
Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences volume 3 §§413-439
Husserl
The Idea of Phenomenology
1927 Encyclopedia Brittanica entry for phenomenology (in Husserl, Shorter Works)
Heidegger
Being and Time §7
On Time and Being
Hegel's Concept of Experience
Levinas
The Theory of Intuition in Husserl's Phenomenology
Existence and Existents
“Phenomenon and Enigma” in Collected Philosophical Papers
Henri
The Essence of Manifestation
Material Phenomenology
Lecturer: Dr Martin Black
Monday-Friday 3-5pm, July 11 - July 15
This course examine a key text by a thinker who is among those who has the greatest influence on our thought and so our practice in modern times. Nietzsche’s influence extends far beyond those who study his works, it extends, for example, as far as anyone who uses the word “values” to describe the relation between human beings and the principles of their thought and action. What did Nietzsche intend by this and other aspects of the revolution in our self-understanding that he sought to bring about?
Nietzsche was perhaps the most philosophical of those thinkers and artists who seemed to be prophets of the intellectual or spiritual crisis, and the subsequent political revolutions and crimes, world wars, and other convulsions of the twentieth century. Subsequent events seem only to have exacerbated the conditions Nietzsche originally diagnosed and so his thought seems likely to become only more relevant in the twenty-first century as this crisis deepens and works itself into new forms. However, the meaning of Nietzsche’s analysis of and proposal for overcoming this crisis is a matter of great controversy. In the first place, Nietzsche himself seems to forbid access to what he considered his deepest thoughts, while simultaneously inviting misinterpretation by writing in an incendiary manner on all sorts of topics of popular and political interest. Secondly, Nietzsche’s response to the crisis of modernity as nihilism or decadence excoriates the “modern ideas” of democracy, equal rights, commercial society, and so on. These factors have led much of the explicit commentary on Nietzsche astray, whether in condemnation or praise of his supposed political views, or in attempting to dissolve the link between politics and philosophy in his thought.
In this course we will examine Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, which is commonly thought to give full expression to Nietzsche’s mature views, in order to elucidate Nietzsche’s intention and evaluate his evidence for it. Each day’s discussion will focus on a small number of aphorisms from across the book. The chief foci will be: Nietzsche’s evaluation of our current age and the problem it presents; Nietzsche’s political and philosophical intentions for the future; and the understanding of philosophy and human nature that underpins both the diagnosis and the cure. It will be proposed in conclusion that Nietzsche’s project issues from the acceptance and radical thinking through of certain principles of early modern philosophy, as he himself suggests. Nietzsche’s interpretation of nature, including human nature, as wholly historical or constructed may be challenged if we can question those principles. But in any case, if it plausible, this proposal helps explain the great power Nietzsche’s thought has for us.
Brief criticisms will be suggested of some of the more influential interpretations of Nietzsche, including Heidegger’s, which appears to be the most philosophical of these. However, as with all philosophical texts, Nietzsche’s is both apparently familiar and actually inexhaustible: the main purpose of the course is to prepare your own confrontation with the book and its issues.
Translation of BGE: The translation used in the course will be that of Judith Norman (corrected imprint: Cambridge, 2009). The older versions by R. J. Hollingdale (London: 1990; later imprints have the same translation) and W. Kaufmann (Random House) are also good, although the latter is deformed by the editor’s vanity. The latter two editions are usually available inexpensively at second hand. In June a PDF reader containing a translation of the main aphorisms to be discussed will be placed on the course website.
Preliminary Reading: Any reading in BGE itself will be beneficial. Paul Daniels is teaching a course on The Birth of Tragedy in week three of the Winter 2011 term and some reference to this important early work will be made in the first lecture. Additionally, Twilight of the Idols is a useful encapsulation of Nietzsche’s mature views that is closely related to the themes of BGE.
An Introduction to Aristotle
Lecturer:Dr Martin Black
Monday-Friday 3-5pm, July 18 - July 22
This course will provide an outline of Aristotle’s thought and a close reading of key passages. It would be difficult to overestimate the scale of Aristotle’s accomplishment and the importance of studying his thought for our current self-understanding. The majority of the categories and disciplines of modern intellectual life derive directly or indirectly from Aristotle’s work; e.g., political science, ethics, biology, physics, metaphysics, cosmology, theology, psychology, and rhetoric, not to mention terms like substance, potentiality, actuality, reality, essence, etc. At the same time, it is often asserted that Aristotle’s work has been eclipsed by progress in the various modern sciences. Modifications to certain of his principles and empirical findings are necessary, but it is possible to argue that his fundamental approach is the right one. For example, the partial success of modern science has led to a kind of schizophrenia in our self-understanding between the scientific and the ordinary views of the world and of our place in it. By contrast, Aristotle works out the grounds, ends, and various branches of philosophy “dialectically.” This classical sense of dialectic arises from the conclusion that the only authentic way to the true principles of human existence is through our ordinary ways of experiencing and speaking about them. This orientation is summed up in Aristotle’s saying that we must proceed from what is first for us in order to approach what is first by nature. Whatever we learn must comprehend the nature of the human being able to learn.
The particular difficulty and benefit for us in reading Aristotle now is that modern philosophy and science are founded on a rejection of the scholastic version of Aristotelianism transmitted by the monotheistic religions. But that rejection took place on the grounds of an agreement with scholasticism as to the fundamental alternatives of thought. As a result, whereas modern thinkers frequently suggest that Aristotle’s philosophy depends upon theological and cosmological principles long since rejected, it would be more accurate to say that precisely the reverse is the case: modern thought depends upon such presuppositions intrinsic to its rejection of scholasticism, while Aristotle’s dialectical ascent to the principles of life is free of any such a priori commitments. For these reasons, some brief comparisons with the basic structure of modern science will be offered.
Our examination of Aristotle will begin with a reading of some of his programmatic remarks about the beginning of philosophy in ordinary experience and in the arts and sciences. We will then discuss in outline, firstly, his “philosophy of human affairs” (ethics and politics, and their constitution in poetry and rhetoric) and, secondly, his philosophy of the living world and its principles (biology, physics, and metaphysics). Brief selections from a range of pivotal considerations and conclusions will be discussed in more detail.
Monday: The “architecture” of Aristotle’s philosophy
Reading: Nicomachean Ethics I.1-3, Metaphysics I.1-3, VII.4, Physics I.1, and Topics I.2, Parts of
Animals I.5
Tuesday: The practical sciences, part one: Character, virtue, practice and theory
Reading: Nicomachean Ethics, Rhetoric
Wednesday: The practical sciences, part two: Human nature, regime, and culture
Reading: Politics, Poetics
Thursday: The theoretical sciences, part one: The nature of living beings
Reading: Physics, de Anima, Parts of Animals
Friday: The theoretical sciences, part two: The question of being and the question of the human good
Reading: Posterior Analytics, Metaphysics, Protreptikos
Difficulty: Introductory. The class will introduce broad articulations and terminology of Aristotle’s thought and to introduce selected portions of text for discussion. We will seek to make immediate sense of these texts with as unsophisticated a language as tenable. However, the material is dense and any prior reading in Aristotle will be helpful.
Text and Preliminary Reading: If you have any chance for preliminary reading I suggest the following translations: (1) the accurate renderings by H. G. Apostle and L. P. Gerson, or (2) those by Joe Sachs, which, despite some idiosyncratic decisions, issue from an even better understanding of Aristotle. A reader containing the passages which will be examined in detail will be available in PDF form on the course website in June, but for technical reasons it must use the older standard versions from the Oxford series edited by W. D. Ross. These translations are not always consistent and use some unhelpful translations, they are scholarly. They are also freely available on the web, although without their original notes (e.g. at the site eBooks@Adelaide).
Heidegger’s Being and Time
Lecturer: James Garrett
Mondays 6-8pm, June 20, June 27, July 4, July 11, July 18
Being and Time, published in 1927, remains one of the most influential texts of modern philosophy. This 10 hour course works through the key arguments of Being and Time, discerning especially the basic themes and methods of the early Heidegger’s project of ‘fundamental ontology’. While Heidegger soon deemed his original project was impossible to complete, the published fragment (at more than 400 pages) demonstrates a way of philosophising and a critique of what had gone before that continues to shape the possibility of intellectual activity today.
Lecture 1Difficulty: Intermediate. No knowledge of Heidegger is assumed, but some acquaintance with philosophy is.
It would be best if you have a copy of Being and Time - either translation is fine.
Satre and Sexuality
Lecturer: Steven Churchill
Tuesdays 6-8pm, June 21, June 28, July 5, July 12, July 19
Jean-Paul
Sartre's early existentialism is perhaps most readily associated with
his 1938 debut novel, Nausea and his collection 1939 of short stories,
The Wall, culminating in the 1943 release of his first philosophical
masterpiece Being and Nothingness. These works were widely praised upon
their release as clarifying Sartre's view that "existence precedes one's essence",
along with his related views regarding radical freedom and
responsibility. However, these works were also criticised for their
portrayal of sexuality. Some sections of the literary and philosophical
establishment suggested that they eschewed romance, closeness and love
in the name of a doctrinaire pessimism. Others suggested that Sartre was
merely a voyeur, exploiting the literary and philosophical forms to
indulge a love of simple crudity or vulgarity. Though the depictions of
sexuality from Sartre at this point in his career are generally
considered "tame"
by present-day standards, they have nonetheless remained the target of
criticism and derision. Even scholars who have devoted themselves
specifically to studying Sartre's life and works have singled-out his
approach to sexuality as a negative aspect of his thought. Contemporary
criticism of Sartre in this regard divides into two main categories.
Firstly, there are those who argue that Sartre depicts a world that is
philosophically androcentric (centred on man and the experiences of men,
especially of a sexual nature) and phallocentric (centred on sexual
experience involving the penis). Further, these critics argue, Sartre
establishes these attitudes as stemming from values that are
freely-chosen and therefore beyond critique (indeed, even viewable as
laudable) within the terms of his own existentialism. The second branch
of criticism accepts that Sartre does not give his ethical or moral
assent to androcentrism and/or phallocentrism. Rather, these critics
argue, he employs these worldviews as a means of depicting
philosophically the "failure of desire" - the failure of "conventional" values centring on love, lust and so on to obtain any "objective" status in the world, beyond their being freely-chosen by individuals. These critics, then, claim to read Sartre "positively"
by avoiding accusations of mere voyeurism, but they nevertheless hold
that Sartre employs sexuality purely as a philosophical instrument - a
kind of erotically-charged "test case" for the radical subjectivity of value in existentialism.
This
course seeks to engage with, as well as to respond to, both of these
strands of criticism. The first branch of criticism may be responded to
initially on the grounds that it ignores the effect of literary
censorship (particularly with regard to Nausea) on the presentation of
sexuality in Sartre's writings, and the extent to which it precluded
Sartre from discussing sexuality in a richer way. Furthermore, the
various scenes and quotations cited from Sartre's work in support of
accusations of androcentrism/phallocentrism ignore a much broader
treatment of sexuality from Sartre, encompassing themes such as the "popular" view of homosexuality (as well as "compulsory"
heterosexuality) in 1930's-40's France, sexual symbolism in the
culinary domain and daily life more generally, and the impact of mental
illness on sexual experiences. The second branch of criticism, accusing
Sartre of employing sexual themes purely as a means of addressing the
implications of the "failure of desire"
for the radical subjectivity of the values often associated with
desire, can likewise be understood as narrowing the scope of discussion.
It is possible, after all, to hold that the "failure of desire" depicted by Sartre is also designed to demonstrate the extent to which desire is often lived "inauthentically". That is, desire may be constructed by individuals to suit a particular "image", but may then be lived by them as though it were an "innate" aspect of their existence. More than this, though, Sartre also seeks to demonstrate that even when we think we have "seen through"
this constructedness, we continue to impart our values all the same. It
is only through realising this is so that we can begin to intervene in
this construction, and re-construct our sexual Being in authentic way.
In this way, the "failure of desire" can be understood as not having been intended as simply a philosophical "end in itself" for Sartre's existentialist purposes, but rather the means to reclaiming a "lived" sexuality.
Course Outline:
Introduction
* Course Outline
* Aims
* Texts
* Introduction to existentialism
* Introduction to Sartre's life, thought and works
* Why sexuality in Sartre's early writings?
* Why a re-consideration?
Section 1: Nausea
* The relationship between Sartre's existentialism and Nausea
* Sartre's journey to Nausea's publication
* Introduction to some passages from Nausea normally used in support of androcentrism/phallocentrism claims
* Introduction to "failure of desire" critiques
* Problems with each of these approaches
* The Melancholia manuscript - A different perspective on critiques
* Moving beyond "standard" critiques
Section 2: Intimacy
* The relationship between Sartre's existentialism and Intimacy
* Sartre's "reputation for crudity"
* Introduction to some passages from Intimacy normally used in support of androcentrism/phallocentrism claims
* Introduction to "voyeurism" criticism
* Problems with this approach
* Reading Intimacy as a "lived psychosexuality"
Section 2: Being and Nothingness
* The relationship between Sartre's existentialism and Being and Nothingness
* From literature to "phenomenological ontology"
* Introduction to some passages from Being and Nothingness normally used in support of androcentrism/phallocentrism claims
* The "failure of desire" (in ontological form)
* Problems with this approach
* The "redemption" of desire in the Notebooks
Marcel Gauchet: Religion and Modernity
Lecturer: Dr Mark Hewson
Wednesdays 6-8pm, June 22, June 29, July 6, July 13, July 20
Marcel Gauchet's The Disenchantment of the World, acclaimed a contemporary classic in the years that followed its publication in 1985, is an ambitious philosophical interpretation of world history, focused on the nexus of religion and politics. Gauchet argues that the originality of the modern age can only be grasped in studying the transformations that prepare its emergence within the history of religion – a history which, as he shows, is inseparably bound up with the history of political systems. What distinguishes this work among philosophical histories is its incorporation of the archaic: drawing on anthropological studies, Gauchet analyses religion by reference to the zero point of the primitive religions under which humanity lived for millennia, and which he sees as representing religion in the pure form. The great transition in human history lies in the move from religion, in this “primitive” mode to the state, which he sees as having its origin with the first articulations of a religion of transcendence.
A work of great scale and ambition, Gauchet’s work merits comparison with other major interpretations of modernity, in the wake of Heidegger, such as those of Adorno/Horkheimer, Foucault or Blumenberg.
This course will provide an introduction to Gauchet's book, and to some of the contemporary debates around the idea of modernity.
Week 1: Introduction: the disappearance of religion in modernity. The “pure” religion of archaic societies.
Week 2: The rise of the state and the transformation of religion during the “axial period” (an expression used by Karl Jaspers, to name the period during which the great religions emerged). The comparison of archaic religions and religions of transcendence (Judaism, Christianity, Islam).
Week 3: From immersion in nature to transformation of nature: the different relations to nature characterizing archaic religions and religions of transcendence.
Week 4: The powers of the divine subject: a political analysis of Judaism, Christianity and the Greek “religion of reason”.
Week 5: Figures of the human subject: A global analysis of the structure of modern society and ideology.
The course will be at an introductory level, although some prior philosophical study would be helpful. Those interested in taking the course could begin reading Gauchet’s Disenchantment of the World – but also any reading in the history of religion or in contemporary sociological or philosophical theories of modernity would be relevant.
Alfred Hitchcock and the Unstable Image
Lecturer: Mairéad Phillips
Thursdays 6-8pm, June 23, June 30, July 7, July 14, July 21
Hitchcock (1899 – 1980) is one of cinema’s most recognizable and influential directors. His work spanned six decades, from the silent movie era to the end of the studio system in Hollywood. During his long career he made 53 features (1925-1976) and over 300 television shows, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1955-1965).
Hitchcock was at the forefront of many pioneering film techniques. He established himself from his days in the British film industry as a virtuoso, essentially creating a new genre that carried his name: the Hitchcock Thriller. Along with his signature cameo appearances, Hitchcock’s trademarks multiplied over the years with each successive film: the double chase, the theme of the wrong man, the cool blonde, claustrophobic sets, a fascination with sex and death, and his macabre sense of humour; these visual tropes and motifs combined to make a Hitchcock film instantly recognizable.
Hitchcock is also one of the most theorized directors of all time. His films have been studied by many film scholars and critical theorists of various backgrounds and persuasions since the sixties until the present day. The critical reception of Hitchcock’s work is ever growing as his films continue to enjoy popularity not only with film scholars, but he continues to inspire contemporary filmmakers, and to reach new audiences to this day.
This course is designed to follow a chronological progression of Hitchcock’s work by focusing on the development of his themes and styles from his early days in silent cinema up to the late masterpieces of Marnie and The Birds. The weekly nature of the course encourages participants to watch a recommended viewing list of Hitchcock films over the five weeks.
The course is ideal for students interested in the study of Hitchcock as a film director of some philosophical importance. The course will present some Deleuzian and Lacanian readings of Hitchcock, but no prior knowledge of Hitchcock, cinema theory, Lacanian psychoanalysis or Deleuze is assumed, although a comprehensive background reading list will be provided prior to the commencement of the course.
The focus of the course will carry through the recurring visual motif of unstable images of perception. From very early on, Hitchcock was interested in showing experiences of extreme emotional disturbance and psycho-physical distress. This interest has produced many representations of altered mental states; amongst them are visual representations of delirium, shock, nervousness, drunkenness, seasickness, amnesia, and vertigo.
Lecture 1. Enfant terrible: Hitchcock’s origins, early influences, and rising star in the British film industry
Recommended viewing: The Lodger (1926), Blackmail (1929), Murder! (1930)
Lecture 2. Thriller Sextet: Travel as a mode of perception
Recommended viewing: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), Secret Agent (1936), The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Lecture 3. Thinking in Pictures: Hitchcock in Hollywood
Recommended viewing: Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), Strangers on a Train (1951)
Lecture 4. Fatal Attractions: Hitchcock’s Golden Years
Recommended viewing: Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960)
Lecture 5. Apocalyptic Visions: it’s the End of the World!
Recommended viewing: The Birds (1960), Marnie (1964)
Mairéad Phillips is a researcher in Cinema Studies in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Her thesis is entitled Passengers of Desire: Hitchcock’s Planes, Trains and Automobiles. She has written an article for The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and provided audio commentary on Secret Agent (1936) for the re-released DVDs of early Hitchcock films through Madman Distribution.
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