How to Begin Thinking: Aftermaths of Twentieth-Century Literature, Philosophy, History

Conducted in English: Undergraduate Elective. Cross listed with English and Philosophy "Thinking," the French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas once suggested, "probably begins through traumatisms." This course will study a series of disruptive and transformative events that have indelibly marked the twentieth century. What is the task of thinking for a European tradition displaced internally by the Holocaust and externally by the end of colonial expansions into other continents? Authors will include Levinas, Derrida, Nancy, Saussure, Barthes, Duras (in English translation from French); Borges and Dorfman (in English and English translation from Spanish); Calvino (in English translation from Italian); and Descartes (in English translation from Latin). A German component (in English translation) will consider Husserl and Heidegger as a counterpoint to the European tradition of Romance languages, literatures, and cultures.