136-482 Imagined Societies: Ideology, Subjectivity and Politics

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Objectives:

Students who complete this subject should:

• possess knowledge of some major contemporary debates regarding the formation, structuration and organisation of subjectivities;

• possess an understanding of the centrality of subjectivity to the organisation of political and social relations;

• possess an awareness of some contemporary approaches to the study of political subjectivities; including ethnicity, race and gender;

• possess an awareness of some of the difficulties associated with the contemporary attempts to theorise and write about subjectivities in high or post-modernity;

• possess an acquaintance with some attempts to bring contemporary theories of subjectivity to the study of empirical cases, be these individuals, institutions, groups or societies.

Content:

This subject critically engages with questions regarding the place of subjectivity in the constitution and organisation of social and political relations at both the theoretical and empirical levels, thereby exploring novel approaches to the study of political subjectivities, including race, gender and ethnicity. By engagement with such theorists as Lacan, Castoriadis, Kristeva, Foucault, Giddens and Habermas, this subject highlights the places of the imaginary and the unconscious in the structuration of ideologies and subjectivities.

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