Mar 29, 2024  
Catalogue 2019-2020 
    
Catalogue 2019-2020 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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POLI 372 - New Materialism

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
This seminar is a non-exhaustive survey of a recent and prolific current in theory called “new materialism” and “the nonhuman turn.” Consisting mostly of feminist theorists, new materialists argue for the need to build upon, radicalize, and sometimes even break from the previous post-structuralist focus on discourse (the so-called “linguistic turn”). They argue that it is time to re-emphasize materiality, bodies, biology, evolution, ecologies, the nonhuman, the more-than-human, even the specter of the posthuman. This attempt is partly inspired by the rise of digital and surveillance capitalism resulting in the omnipresence of technology in our daily lives and in the production of “cyborg” (Donna Haraway) subjectivities or “dividuals” (Gilles Deleuze). New materialism has also emerged in response to the “intrusion of Gaia” (Isabelle Stengers) or what some have called the “Anthropocene,” or the “ecological crisis” (arguably more aptly described as “eco-catastrophe”).  Claire Sagan.

One 2-hour period.

Course Format: CLS



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