Critical Theory of Society

Part I: Theory and Practice

1. Documentary issues

• Learning to observe in detail and to record those observations while interrogating your own position vis-à-vis what you are observing.
• Documentation as an artificial setup: artificiality is not incompatible with objectivity.
• Art examples:
• Joe Spence
• Debates about documentary cinema (direct cinema vs. cinema verite)

2. The Author as Producer

• Transmitting information vs. Changing the relations of production
• Art examples:
• Epic Theater
• Open works
• Pedagogy of the Oppressed

3. Relations of Production, Needs, and Situations

• A more theoretical discussion of the concept of production relations in relation to human needs.
• Art examples:
• The Situationist International

4. Ideology Critique

• Rigid languages and absolute truths vs. fluid and self-questioning languages
• Art examples:
• Detournement as the fluid language of anti-ideology: (Debord)
• The connection between ideology critique and modern intermedia
• Modern art as a questioning of all stable frames.

5. Radical Psychology: subjectivity and social relations

• Anti-psychiatry and other radical views of subjectivity

6. Gender and Identity

• Art example: Mary Kelly

7. Normalization and Space

• Architecture, power, and the body
• The management of everyday life

8. Globalization and its Discontents

Part II: General Theoretical Issues

9. The theory of history:

• Materialism vs. idealism
• Economic determinism vs. over-determination

10. Alienation, reification, and fetishism:

• Difference between these three concepts
• Reappropriation
• Debates about popular culture: the fetish character of popular culture
• Criticisms of the Marxist theory of popular culture
• The question of everyday life

11. Existence and structure:

• A short introduction to structuralism in the context of the debate between structuralists and existentialists

12-3. Psychoanlysis and its alternatives

• Review of Freudian theory
• Criticisms of Freudian theory: schizoanalysis

Assessment

The assessment for the course is based on one ongoing project. The following guidelines must be observed:

• The work must involve both artistic creation and social research.
• The format is open: the work can be a documentary video, web site, interactive installation, etc.
• The student must present a research document that presents a record of the entire research and development process. Assessment will be based on the quality of the entire process, not just the outcome.
• The student must demonstrate an ability to reflect critically about her own position in relation to the subject matter.
• Questions about the author-as-producer, and about the pedagogy or art of the oppressed must be explicitly addressed, either in the work in the research document.
• Questions of social psychology must also be addressed.
• The work can involve a local community.

The work will be assessed in three stages:

• Proposal: must include a detailed description of the subject matter, aims, research methodology, and any additional information about the project. (25% of the final grade).
• Progress report (30% of the final grade)
• Final project. (45% of the final grade)

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please let us know.

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