Us / Me / They: Collectivity and Identity 3700-AL-CI-OG

The seminar will study these questions through a dialogue between authors (especially but not exclusively French) who wrote fiction and philosophical essays during the “short” 21st-century and the “long” 16th-century. Such dialogue will thus bridge two distant historical periods: one that immediately precedes and one that immediately follows Western modernity. The relationship between identity and collectivity will be discussed from four complementary perspectives: from the standpoint of ecology, anthropology, metaphysics, and politics.
The seminar will address the question of identity and belonging to a collectivity from the perspective of ecology, anthropology, metaphysics, and politics. The analysis of texts and films will combine two contrasted historical periods: early modernity and our postmodernity.

The seminar work will unfold as follows:

First, Jane Bennett’s vital materialism and Bruno Latour’s ecological metaphysics will dialogue with the work of the 16th-century surgeon and humanist, Ambroise Paré. Second, Philippe Descola’s anthropology will be paired with the testimonies of the explorer of 16th-century Brazil, Jean de Léry and the French humanist Michel de Montaigne. Third, Quentin Meillassoux’s speculative realism will be contrasted with the metaphysics underlying Marguerite de Navarre’s and François Rabelais’ fiction. Forth, Tristan Garcia’s political thought will shed light on the European immigration practices, as illustrated in the novel by the Moroccan writer and artist Mahi Binebine and a recent documentary Black Jesus.

The readings of the seminar will be composed of approachable philosophical essays and fragments of literary prose. They will be introduced through short lectures, to provide the basis for philosophical considerations, historical contextualization, and literary interpretation. The readings will be assigned in advance and equipped with indications regarding the issues to be considered while preparing for the seminar discussion. The in-class discussion will be conducted in English and will be closely related to the assigned readings. Students will have the option of doing their written work in English, Polish or French.

During the last part of the semester students will be invited to work on their individual (or team) Research Projects. The semester will conclude with a small Seminar Symposium during which students will present their Research Projects.

The course has three main goals:
- To train students’ interpretative skills through reading of philosophical and literary texts (in English) devoted to relationship between identity and collectivity,
- To foster a constructive exchange of ideas in an academic setting,
- To promote the students’ original conceptualization of fundamental questions pertaining to the topic of the course.
The goal of this class is not to promote any particular philosophical or ideological agenda.

Plan of the course:
[UNIT 1] Introduction: We / Me

October 9: Tristan Garcia

[UNIT 2] Ecology: Living Matter and Human Exceptionalism
October 16: Bruno Latour
October 23: Jane Bennett
October 30: Bernard Palissy

[UNIT 3] Anthropology: Cannibalism and Western Universalism
November 6: Philippe Descola
November 13: Jean de Léry
November 20: Michel de Montaigne

[UNIT 4] Metaphysics: Human Finitude and the Great Beyond
November 27: Quentin Meillassoux
December 4: Marguerite de Navarre
December 11: François Rabelais

[UNIT 5] Politics: Us and Them
December 18: Mahi Binebine
January 8: “A Black Jesus” (documentary)
January 15: Tristan Garcia

[UNIT 6] Conclusion:
January 22: Seminar Symposium

Course Materials: They will be available on the Moodle page of the course. To get access to this webpage, please contact Prof. Miernowski immediately after registering at jmiernow@wisc.edu

Type of course

general courses

Prerequisites (description)

The only prerequisite is to be able to do the readings in English. The written work will be done either in English or Polish, according to the individual choice of the student (students are also welcome to do their written work in French if they wish to do so). Students are not allowed to submit material generated by ChatGPT or any other Large Language Model. They can use ChatGPT for editorial purposes of the work they wrote themselves, on the condition however that they specify in writing the extent of ChatGPT use and provide the prompt as well as the original version of their work they submitted to ChatGPT.

Course coordinators

Jan Miernowski

Learning outcomes

The class is directed at BA students.

BA Student:
K_W05 is familiar with basic methods of analysis and interpretation of cultural texts and works of art
K_W08 is familiar with basic principles of academic communication in humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences

BA Student knows how to:
K_U02 analyse artworks, scholarly publications, and source texts using specific research methods
K_U03 Contextualize the work of culture in relation to the time of its creation and the moment of reading
K_U04 formulate a research problem
K_U05 recognise and interpret basic problems and phenomena of the modern world
K_U06 participate in academic conferences, symposiums, and discussions
K_U07 demonstrate the results obtained through individual work and teamwork
K_U08 complete basic research assignments in writing

K_U10 communicate in a foreign language at the intermediate level
K_U11 prepare a speech for a target audience
K_U14 use digital resources for academic purposes

BA Student:
K_K02 knows how to work in teams
K_K04 knows how to use various resources for specific purposes
K_K07 observes the principle of tolerance, understands cultural heritage and respects cultural differences
K_K10 respects the principles of research ethics
K_K11 respects the principles of intellectual property

Assessment criteria

In order to be successful in this class you should:
- read and annotate carefully all the required readings and work on all the required lectures
- participate actively in all the in-class discussions
- strive to develop your own personal interpretation of readings and your own conceptualization of problems under discussion
- respect the deadlines of all the assignments in this course.

The final grade of the course is composed of:

- 50% for the Research Project;

- 30% for quizzes written during the semester. The quizzes will have the form of “take home exams”: the students will have up to 48 hours to complete each quiz and they will be allowed to use any notes or library sources they wish (all sources have to be acknowledged). 3 out of 4 best grades for the quizzes will count toward the final grade.

- 20% for the preparation of readings and film viewings, as demonstrated by the assiduity and the quality of participation in the discussions in class.
The class concludes with a Research Project.

Bibliography

[in the order of the course plan; selections in English from]:
- Tristan Garcia, Nous, Grasset, 2016.
- Tristan Garcia, Laisser être et rendre puissant, Presses Universitaires de France, 2023.
- Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter, Duke UP, 2010.
- Bruno Latour, After Lockdown: Metamorphosis, Polity, 2021
- Bruno Latour, Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regisme, Polity, 2018.
- Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, Harvard University Press, 1993.
- Bruno Latour, Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy, Harvard University Press, 2004.
- Ambroise Paré, On Monsters and Marvels [1573], University of Chicago Press, 1982.
- Philippe Descola, Beyond Nature and Culture, University of Chicago Press, 2013.
- Philippe Descola and Alessandro Pignocchi, Ethnographies des mondes à venir, Seuil, 2022.
- Jean de Léry, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil, Otherwise Called America [1578], University of California Press, 1993.
- Michel de Montaigne, Essays [1580-1595], Penguin Classics, 1993.
- Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude. An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency, Continuum, 2010.
- Quentin Meillassoux, Science Fiction and Extro-Science Fiction, Minnesota University Press, 2015.
- Marguerite de Navarre, The Hemptameron [1558-1559], Penguin Classics, 2004.
- François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel [1532-1534], Penguin Classics, 2006.
- Mahi Binebine, Welcome to Paradise, The House Books, 2012
- Black Jesus, documentary by Luca Lucchesi and Hella Wenders, Deutsche Welle, 2022.

Notes

Term 2023Z:

14 seminar synchronous discussion meetings in real time, combined with some prerecorded online lectures, 14 sets of readings and/or video viewings, 4 take-home quizzes (only 3 of them count toward the final grade) and a final Research Project. All students are required to take an active part in all these components of the class.
Face to Face Real Time Meetings on Mondays:
09.10.2023; 16.10.2023; 23.10.2023; 30.10.2023;
06.11.2023; 13.11.2023; 20.11.2023; 27.11.2023;
04.12.2023; 11.12.2023; 18.12.2023;
08.01.2024; 15.01.2024; 22.01.2024 at 3:00-4:30pm

Additional information

Information on level of this course, year of study and semester when the course unit is delivered, types and amount of class hours - can be found in course structure diagrams of apropriate study programmes. This course is related to the following study programmes:

Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system:

Description of 3700-AL-CI-OG in USOSweb