Texts

Martin Heidegger. Introduction to Metaphysics. New translation by Gregory Fried and Richard Polt. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.

Michel Foucault. The History of Sexuality—Volume I: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.

Jacques Derrida. Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins. Translated by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Luce Irigaray. To Be Two. Translated by Monique M. Rhodes and Marco F. Cocito-Monoc. New York: Routledge, 2001.

Selected readings on electronic reserve (ERES). The password for access to these materials is simply PH 302.

Graded Work

Daily interpretative and critical essays. In preparation for each day’s class, I would like you to write an essay on the day’s reading in which you do (at least) two things:

(a) In your first paragraph, provide your own summary of what you see as the essential thesis of the reading and of the core argument for this thesis.

(b) In the rest of your essay, explore your own critical response to this thesis and/or argument.

These essays are meant to get our discussions off to a lively start each day, but they should also provide you with the opportunity to pursue your own interests in the reading, wherever these interests might take you. We will spend the first 30 minutes of each class period by breaking up into pairs, where each person will share their essay with their partner. The daily essays count 60% of the final grade for the course.

One analytic research essay. In this formal essay (roughly 10 pages in length), I would like you to explore a topic that takes you to a substantial reading that is outside of the readings scheduled for the course. Please consult with me as soon as you have a sense of what you might like to do, so that I can help you find appropriate texts and frame a reasonable topic. The essay will be due at noon on the last day of the block. The analytic research essay itself counts 40% of the final grade for the course.

Graded Work (continued)

Class participation is essential for the success of a seminar. Active participation in class discussion can only raise your grade; unexcused absence from class will lower your grade.

Office Hours

1:30—3:30 Monday, Tuesday, Thursday

Armstrong 138.

Office phone: 6860.

Home phone: 686-9630 (before 9:00 p.m., please)

E-mail: jlee@ColoradoCollege.edu

I will be glad to make special appointments for almost any time, any day of the week. Please do not hesitate to come see me for any reason at all: if you have any problems, questions, or difficulties, or if you just want to talk.

Readings

October 4 Introductory meeting.

5 Edmund Husserl, “Phenomenology,” from Encyclopaedia Britannica (1927). (Xerox)

6 Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, “The Concept of Enlightenment,” from Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947). (ERES)

7 Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics (1953) 1-54.

8 Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics 55-97.

11 Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics 98-155.

12 Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics 155-221.

13 Reading day: no class.

14 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality (1976) 1-73.

15 Foucault, The History of Sexuality 75-159.

18 Emmanuel Levinas, “Ethics as First Philosophy” (1982) (ERES).

19 Jacques Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind (1990) 1-44.

20 Reading day: no class.

21 Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind 44-94.

22 Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind 94-129.

25 Luce Irigaray, To Be Two (1994) 1-61.

26 Irigaray, To Be Two 62-118.

27 Analytic essays due at 12:00 noon.