The techniques of forming a research self and the strategies of stalking an object of study 1500-SZD-TKPBSPPB
When Descartes was discoursing on the method, he said: “I was educated in classical studies from my earliest years, and because I was given to believe that through them one could acquire clear and sure knowledge of everything that one needed in life, I was extremely eager to acquire them. But as soon as I had finished my course of study, at which time it is usual to be admitted to the ranks of the well educated, I completely changed my opinion, for I found myself bogged down in so many doubts and errors, that it seemed to me that having set out to become learned, I had derived no benefit from my studies, other than that of progressively revealing to myself how ignorant I was. And yet I was a pupil of one of the most famous schools in Europe” (transl. I. Maclean).
Derrida on the other hand, when responding to the questions that were referred to his well known paper presented in Baltimore in 1966, said: “I was wondering myself if I know where I am going. […] I am trying, precisely, to put myself at a point so that I do not know any longer where I am going. […] I don’t see why I should renounce or why anyone should renounce the radicality of a critical work under the pretext that it risks the sterilization of science, humanity, progress, the origin of meaning, etc. I believe that the risk of sterility and of sterilization has always been the price of lucidity”.
During this methodological class we will consequently and persistently locate ourselves in the gap between constructed knowledge and the means of constructing a method. Approaching with mistrust the grammars of various methods, trends and schools; approaching with caution a deposition (sedimentation) of critical languages in lucidity, one must constantly ask oneself the salient question: on the basis of which techniques and strategies the processes of forming my research self and the processes of inventing the object of my study should be continued. To constitute oneself as the research self means among others to acquire the skill of approaching a problem, of tracing particular implications, of following the tracks (whose?; of which animal: the author, the writer, the scholar?), in order to be ready to countersign them at the decisive moment, to leave one’s own traces scattered across the work that is being written. It means to stay faithful to a strategy, a method up to a point when at the right time an unexpected deviation, a swerve off the authorities’ trail, an escapement has to be performed.
The principle of self-aware research work is always: forming an object of study. So how did those with surnames that start with A (Appadurai), B (Bennett, Butler), C (Cixous), D (Deleuze) or L (Lacan) to S (Spivak) and W White) generate and form their objects of study? On the basis of which strategies and techniques those with surnames that start with A (Auerbach), B (Barthes, Braidotti), D. (Derrida), F (Foucault) to L (Lacoue-Labarthe, Latour), M (de Man) and S (Sartre, Showalter) used to constitute themselves as research selves?
The gap between knowledge and method enables one to put forward questions mentioned above and also to put in methodical doubt the very horizons opened by the latter – without signposts set, not always with fixed knowledge where we are headed to.
Type of course
Assessment criteria
Two absences are acceptable.
Requirements of attendance: pre-reading, preparation for discussion, active participation.
attendance at classes, active participation, preparing a short introduction for a class
questions and answers, contribution to discussions
The class is not graded. Passing the class requires participant’s attendance, pre-reading, taking part in discussions.
Bibliography
- a selection of scholarly articles by i.a.: A. Appadurai, E. Auerbach, J. Bennett, R. Barthes, J. Butler, R. Braidotti, H. Cixous, G. Deleuze, J. Derrida, M. Foucault, J. Kristeva, J. Lacan, Ph. Lacoue-Labarthe, B. Latour, P. de Man, J.-P. Sartre, E. Showalter, G.Ch. Spivak, H. White
Articles assigned for particular meeting will be chosen according to the issues discussed during subsequent classes.
Additional information
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