How to Begin Thinking. Some versions of Twentieth Century History, Philosophy, Literature and Theory: course description
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Kevin Newmark, Boston College
The 20th century has been marked by a series of unexpected and transformative events. Today's thinking is therefore the result of shock waves registered in almost every area conceivable: from historical occurrences to socio-political practices, from philosophical theories to literary forms. This course will examine some of the innovative ways in which the shock waves of our times are registered in works by Italo Calvino, J. M. Coetzee, Art Spiegelman, Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Lévinas, Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Derrida. In a 1981 Interview, Emmanuel Lévinas was asked how one begins thinking. In his reply, Lévinas suggested a rather surprising idea. "It probably begins," he said, "through traumatisms…" Some of the more obvious traumatisms to which the 20th century has been witness include over-whelming historical events, such as the Holocaust, which had a major impact on Levinas' own thinking about the necessity of transforming traditional ways of doing philosophy. Other examples of the way thinking has been altered include the way the student revolts of the late 1960s changed educational practices in the west, the way the end of apartheid in 1994 changed race relations in South Africa, the way emerging post-colonial and non-western patterns of behavior are changing socio-economic, political and legal relations throughout the world. In each case, basic expectations about reality are shocked into confronting or inventing new modes of thinking. In such moments, the world undergoes a change. This course aims to awaken in students an appreciation for the way such sudden and disruptive changes—in history, society, philosophy, and literature—make our situation in the 21st century both a challenge and an opportunity. Facing the unexpected is difficult because it threatens those ways of viewing the world that have become familiar and therefore comfortable for us. However, such challenges can in turn become opportunities for inaugurating modes of thinking and of behaving in the future that might be different in very welcome ways, too. The course will examine a variety of materials that can help to appreciate not only what has already happened to change the world we have inherited from our various traditions, but also to consider what still remains possible, and what is now demanded as we confront and are confronted by new responsibilities.
