Content (Syllabus outline):

1. Historical aspect: the role of art and literature in history of philosophy from Plato to Nietzsche.

2. Literary topics and contemporary philosophical thought: »grand narratives«, world and fiction, representation and emancipation etc.

3. Philosophy of literature: Sartre and the question of engagement, Blanchot and the problem of death, Deleuze and the concept of life, Rancière and the contradictions of literary metaphysics etc.

4. Case studies:

• per philosopher: Heidegger on Hölderlinu, Benjamin on Baudelaire, Deleuze on Proust, Badiou on Mallarmé etc.;
• comparative analysis per authors: various philosophical interpretations of Kafka, Joyce, Brecht etc.;
• comparative analysis per artistic practices: literature and painting, music, photography; drama and theatre.

5. Hermeneutics and various methods of interpretation.

6. Interdisciplinary aspect: philosophy of literature and literary theory, narratology, lingusitics etc.

Readings

• Adorno, Theodor W. 1999. Beležke o literaturi, Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba.
• Agamben, Giorgio. 2004. Bartleby ali o kontingenci«, Problemi, let. 42, št. 7-8.
• Badiou, Alain. 2004. Mali priročnik o inestetiki, Ljubljana: Društvo Apokalipsa.
• Badiou, Alain. 2006. Beckett: l’increvable désir, Pariz: Hachette.
• Benjamin, Walter. 1998. Izbrani spisi, Ljubljana: Studia humanitatis.
• Blanchot, Maurice. 2000. Blanchotovi obrazi, Ljubljana: Študentska založba.
• Deleuze, Gilles. 2010. Kritika in klinika, Ljubljana: Študentska založba.
• Deleuze, Gilles. 2012. Proust in znaki, Ljubljana: Študentska založba.
• Derrida, Jacques. 1993. La dissémination, Pariz: Seuil.
• Foucault, Michel. 2010. Besede in reči: arheologija humanističnih znanosti, Ljubljana: Studia humanitatis.
• Heidegger, Martin. 2001. Razjasnjenja ob Hölderlinovem pesništvu, Ljubljana: Nova revija.
• Jameson, Fredric. 2007. The Modernist Papers, London in New York: Verso.
• Lecercle, Jean-Jacques. 2010. Badiou and Deleuze Read Literature, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Rancière, Jacques. 2011. Mute Speech: Literature, Critical Theory, and Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Rancière, Jacques. 2012. Nelagodje v estetiki, Ljubljana: Založba ZRC.

Objectives and competences

Lectures and seminars in this course will focus on the stakes of philosophical reading of literature. Twentieth century philosophy which strived to abolish metaphysical systems and establish connections with other thought practices (science, politics, art) produced a vast number of philosophical treatises with literary works as their primary focus. The course will examine ways in which literary texts enter philosophical discourse and contribute to the construction of philosophical concepts. The implications of encounters between philosophical and literary thought will be followed along two lines. On the one hand, it will be explored what kind of philosophical questions and insights are enabled by way of literature and why thinking the present (also in the political sense) in philosophy so often entails thinking literature.

Thus, philosophical readings of literature will not be treated as secondary applications of basic philosophical notions but rather as a process of philosophical concept-development that has a key role in ontological, phenomenological as well as historical and political reflections. On the other hand, the course will look into the philosophical contributions to understanding literature itself in interaction with and in comparison to other theoretical practices that take literature as their primary subject (literary theory, comparative literature, linguistics, sociology, psychoanalysis). Furthermore, it will also be explored how philosophical interpretations of literature relate to interpretations of other forms of art (e. g. painting, music, photography). Students will be able to acquire knowledge on various contemporary philosophical branches and schools through modernist literature. The course is also designed to accommodate seminars where collective parallel readings of literary in philosophical texts will take place. Students will get to know ways of thinking about the contemporary world through literature and understanding literature in terms of philosophical questions and problems.

Intended learning outcomes

Students will:

• gain knowledge on principle problems of philosophical understanding of modern literature and thus a more thorough comprehension of key aesthetical, political and ontological concepts of contemporary philosophy
• gain the ability to use different methods of interpreting literary and philosophical texts
• gain the ability of independent philosophical research of literary texts.

Learning and teaching methods

Types of learning/teaching:

• frontal teaching,
• work in smaller groups or pair work,
• independent students work,
• e-learning.

Teaching methods:

• explanation,
• conversation/discussion/debate,
• work with texts,
• case studies,
• different presentation.

Assessment

• Long written assignments (70 %),
• final examination (written/oral) (30 %).