UNIVERSITY OF MARY WASHINGTON -- NEW COURSE PROPOSAL Electronically submit this completed form with attachments in one file to the Chair of the College Curriculum Committee.
COLLEGE (check one): Arts and Sciences X Business Education Proposal Submitted By: Michael Reno Date Prepared: 09 October 2018 Course Title: Critical Theory Department/discipline and course number*: PHIL 344 Prerequisites: PHIL 202 *This course number must be approved by the Office of the Registrar before the proposal is submitted.
Number of credits: 3 Will this course meet for at least 700 contact minutes for each YES X credit hour proposed? If no, provide a credit hour justification. Will this be a new, repeatable “special topics” course? (Do you want students to be able to NO X YES take this new course more than once if the topic changes?)
Date of first offering of this new course: FALL SEMESTER, year Fall 2019 Proposed frequency of offering of the course: Bi-annual Proposed enrollment limit for the course: 25 List the faculty who will likely teach the course: Reno, Vasey Are ANY new resources required? NO X YES Document in attached impact statement **The earliest the course may be offered is the fall semester of the academic year FOLLOWING the year in which the course proposal is approved. This new course will be (check all that apply): Required in the major Required in the minor General Elective Elective in the major x Elective in the minor x General Education** **AFTER the new course is approved, a separate proposal must be sent to the General Education Committee.
Catalog Description (suggested length – less than 50 words):
Study of key figures in the Frankfurt School tradition of Critical Theory including Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Habermas, Honneth, Fraser, and others.
COURSE HISTORY: Was this course taught previously as a topics or YES X NO experimental course? Course Number and Title of Previous Course Semester Enrollment Offered PHIL 331H-01 Fall 2016 15
X CHECK HERE if the proposed course is to be equated with the earlier topics or experimental offerings. If equated, students who took the earlier “topics” course will only be able to take the new course as a repeat (C- grade or lower). NOTE: If the proposed course has not been previously offered as a topics or experimental course, explain in the attached rationale statement why the course should be adopted even though it has not been tried out.
REQUIRED ATTACHMENTS: 1. Rationale Statement – Why is this course needed? What purposes will it serve? 2. Credit Hour Justification (if required) – explain how this course will comply with the UMW Credit Hours Policy (D.5.3) 3. Impact Statement – Provide details about the Library, space, staffing, budget, and technology impacts created by adding this new course. Include supporting statements from the Library, IT Department, etc. Any change that impacts another Department must have a written statement (such as an email) from the Chair(s) agreeing to the change. 4. Sample Syllabus
Department Chair Approval*: Craig Vasey Date: Oct 9, 2018
CCC Chair Approval: Date: 10/18/2018
*COB and COE proposals approved by the Associate Dean. BEFORE consideration by the UCC, the proposal must be approved the two levels noted above. Approval by the UCC and UFC are noted on the proposal “status history” at the UCC web site.
New Course Proposal Cover Sheet (July 2018) CCC Critical Theory Proposal Rationale statement
I propose to offer a course in Critical Theory every other year. The course has been taught in various forms as a special topics course over the last 10 years. As it is both my area of expertise and an area of student interest—we now have at least one former student pursuing a graduate degree focused on the topics in this course—, it ought to be offered on a regular schedule. In terms of our other offerings in European philosophy, it would give those course offerings a kind of symmetry as we have regular courses in Phenomenology and Existentialism. In addition, it is the natural follow-up to our 19th century European philosophy course—Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche—as the figures of study in Critical Theory take up each of these philosophers. In addition, putting the course on a regular schedule will allow me to propose that it be listed as WI and/or SI. Students in the course will be writing and re-writing quite a bit, and so they ought to get credit for their work. Unversity of Mary Washington Fall 2016 Critical Theory 11:00-12:15 Tu/Th Trinkle 138
Instructor Information Michael Reno Contact: via email: [email protected] Office: Trinkle B48 Office Hours: 11:00-11:50 on M/W/F 8:30-9:20 on Tu/Th
Course Description This course provides an introduction to the group of thinkers who have come to be known as the Frankfurt School, or Critical Theorists. The core of the group of the first generation were Germans who came of age between the first and second world wars and were involved in the Frankfurt Institute. Our focus in the first part of the course will be on the core members of this first generation who ended up in the United States during the war: Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse. But, since their approach is based in Marx and later Marxist thinkers, we will begin with a brief study of Marx and the twentieth century Hungarian theorist, Georg Lukács. We then turn to the first generation's attempts to think through Marxist theory in light of the failure of the working class to play its role as it was spelled out in theories like Lukács' and the rise of Fascist regimes in Germany, Italy, and Spain. We turn to their later thinking which examines the continuing failure of human beings to provide for their wants and needs despite the revolutionary technical advances of the species. Here, we consider particularly utopian possibilities and their impediments. By the 1960s Adorno and Marcuse, especially, have motivated and inspired a second generation of critial theorists. Jürgen Habermas is the most influential of them. We will examine some of his criticisms of his predecessors and some elements from his own attempts to move critical theory toward a foundation in the pragmatic assumptions of language. In the contemporary period, critical theory continues to address questions of progress, injustice, and the possibility of something different. In the face of both continuing technological progress and extreme human suffering, Axel Honneth, Nancy Fraser, Robert Gooding-Willaims, Amy Allen and many others continue the tradition while considering questions of racism and sexism more directly than their predecessors. We will work with some of these figures in the last part of the course and as a part of your final project.
Required Texts
All readings will be posted on Canvas. But, this means that you are responsible for bringing the texts to class in some form. You can print them or bring a device that can read pdfs, but we will almost always want the text with us in class.
Accomodation People learn differently. So, meet with me early on if you have a documented disability and require accommodation OR if you have learning styles that you’re not sure have been met in the past. I will do my best to adapt to your learning style. If you wish to request specific accommodations you should also contact the Office of Disability resources in 401 Lee Hall. All information regarding this, whether discussed with me or the Office of Disability, will be kept confidential.
Assignments and Grading
Attendence and Participation: 5% I expect that you will attend each class session having done the reading, taken notes on the reading, and ready to discuss the reading. You must be an active reader to understand the texts and link them to contemporary concerns.
10 Weekly Writings: 20% Around once a week, I will post a writing assignment on Canvas. The writing assignments will ask you specific questions on the readings, but will always ask you to move beyond the reading into evaluation, synthesis, and/or application.
2 Take Home Exams: 40% The take home exams will be due just after fall break and at the final exam period. These will ask you to do substantial writing about the course material. Specific instructions will be given at least one week before they are due.
2 Papers: 35% The first paper will be worth 15% and the second 20%. Specific instructions will be posted at least one week prior to the paper's due date.
All readings are available on Canvas as pdfs. You should always bring the reading to class in some form.
WK1 Tuesday, August 30th: Course Introduction, Reading selection from Adorno, Minima Moralia, "Don't Exaggerate." Thursday, September 1st: Marx, Capital v.1 Selection. "The Commodity Form and Its Secret." Begin Lukacs, "Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat."
WK2 Tuesday, September 6th: Lukacs, continued. Begin Max Horkheimer, "Traditional and Critical Theory" Thursday, September 8th: Horkheimer, cont. Optional: Herbert Marcuse, "Philosophy and Critical Theory"
WK3 Tuesday, September 13th: Frederick Pollock, "State Capitalism" Thursday, September 15th: Horkheimer and Adorno, selection from Dialectic of Enlightenment, "The Concept of Enlightenment." Optional, Kant, "What is Enlightenment?"
WK4 Tuesday, September 20th: Theodor Adorno, Excerpts from Minima Moralia, up through p. 20 in the pdf/Aphorism #68 Thursday, September 22nd: Finish excerpts from Minima Moralia.
WK5 Tuesday, September 27th: Marcuse, excerpt from Five Lectures, "Freedom and Freud's Theory of Instincts." Thursday, September 29th: Marcuse, excerpt from Five Lectures "The End of Utopia." First Paper Due.
WK6 Tuesday, October 4th: Adorno, "Freudian Theory and the Pattern Fascist Propaganda" Thursday, October 6th: Adorno, "How to Look at Television"
WK7 Tuesday, October 11th: Adorno, Lecture 13 and 14 from Lectures on Metaphysics Thursday, October 13th: Adorno, "Resignation"
WK8 Tuesday, October 18th: FALL BREAK, NO CLASS Thursday, October 20th: Manufactured Landscapes, film, 1st Take-Home Exam Due.
WK9 Tuesday, October 25th: Marcuse, "The Catastrophe of Liberation" Thursday, October 27th: Jürgen Habermas, "Technology and Science as Ideology"
WK10 Tuesday, November 1st: Habermas, "The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment: Horkheimer and Adorno" Thursday, November 3rd: Habermas, "An Alternative Way Out of the Philosophy of the Subject: Cmmunicative v. Subject-centered Reason"
WK11 Tuesday, November 8th: Habermas, Excerpt from The Theory of Communicative Action Thursday, November 10th: Habermas “Discourse Ethics: Notes a Program of Philosophical Justification”
WK12 Tuesday, November 15th: Nancy Fraser, "What's Critical About Critical Theory? The Case of Habermas and Gender"
Thursday, November 17th: Axel Honneth, "The Social Dynamics of Disrespect: On the Location of Critical Theory Today"
WK13 Tuesday, November 22nd: Second Paper Due. Readings TBD by student interest. Thursday, November 24th: NO CLASS. THANKSGIVING BREAK.
WK 14 Tuesday, November 29th: Readings TBD by student interest. Thursday, December 1st: Readings TBD by student interest.
WK15 Tuesday, December 6th: Readings TBD by student interest. Thursday, December 8th: Readings TBD by student interest.
Final Exam Period: Tuesday, December 13th, Noon. Second Take Home Exam Due.