136-482 Imagined Societies: Ideology, Subjectivity and Politics

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Admission to fourth year honours.

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

This subject critically engages with questions regarding the place of subjectivity in the constitution and organisation of social and political relations. It does so 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. 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 social and political relations; possess an awareness of the difficulties associated with analysing subjectivities in late or post-modernity; and 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.

Assessment

Assessment will be based on one essay of 6000 words (80%), class participation (10%) and an oral class presentation (10%).