Course Schedule and Calendar of Assignments:
Week 1 / Introduction: What is Postmodernism?
Selections from: Introduction, "Reading the Postmodern Reader" in PMR
from Ch 1 / "The Time of the Posts" in PMT
Images/Texts: Barbara Kruger, photographs; Mark Tansey, paintings
Unit 1 Images Online: Kruger / TanseyWeek 2 / Articulating the Postmodern
Readings: Readings: Stuart Sim, "Postmodernism and Philosophy" in RCtP
Thomas Kuhn, from "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" in PMR
Jean-Francois Lyotard, from "The Postmodern Condition in PMRWeek 3 / Knowledge, Power and Postmodernism
Althusser, "Marxism and Humanism" Ch 6 in PH
Barthes, "The Great Family of Man" Ch 2 in PH
Foucault, "The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences" Ch 5 in PH Linda Hutcheon, "Beginning to Theorize Postmodernism" in PMR
Ch 2 / "Paths to the Postmodern: Kierkegaard, Marx and Nietzsche" in PMTWeek 4 / Poststructuralism & Deconstruction
Readings: L. Spencer "Postmodernism, Modernity & the Tradition of Dissent" in RCtP Gunkel, Gunkel, D. "Deconstruction for Dummies" (Appendix in HC)
Derrida, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" in PMRWeek 5 / Poststructuralism & Deconstruction
Readings: Derrida, continued
Colin Trodd, "Postmodernism and Art" in RCTP
from Ch 4 / "Postmodernism and the Arts in PMT pp. 164 - 189
Video Excerpt: "Derrida Interview"
Unit 5 Supplemental Art Images Online
Student Case Study Presentation: Postmodern ArtWeek 6 / Simulation and Simulacra
Readings: Jean Baudrillard, "The Precession of Simulacra" in PMR
Gunkel, "Veritatum Imitari: Virtual Reality and the Deconstruction of the Image"
Ch 3 in HC Diane Morgan, "Postmodernism and Architecture" in RCTP
from Ch 4 / "Postmodernism and the Arts in PMT pp. 138 - 164
Student Case Study Presentation: Postmodern ArchitectureWeek 7 / Simulation and Simulacra
Readings: Ch 3 / "From the Society of the Spectacle to the Realm of Simulation" PMT
Derek B. Scott, "Postmodernism and Music" in RCTP
Guest Lecture: Baudrillard and Audio Culture, David J. Gunkel
Prof. of Communication, Northern Illinois University
Week 8 / Postmodern Poetics
Readings: Charles Bernstein, "The Second War and Postmodern Memory" Postmodern Culture. January 1991. (Online: http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/text-only/issue.191/bernstei.191)
Barry Lewis, "Postmodernism and Fiction" in RCTP
from Ch 4 / "Postmodernism and the Arts in PMT pp. 124 - 138
Student Case Study Presentation: Postmodern Literature
Week 9 / What is Posthumanism?
Readings: Badmington, "Approaching Posthumanism" Ch 1 in PH
Pamela Sue Anderson, "Postmodernism and Religion" in RCTP
Supplemental Rdg: "The Sacred in the City: Polonian Street Processions as Countercultural Practice" Ann Hetzel Gunkel (Polish American Studies. Vol. LX, No. 2 Autumn 2003)(handout)
Video Excerpt: "STNG: Measure of a Man"
Student Case Study Presentation: Postmodern TheologyWeek 10 / Cyborgs and the Posthuman
Readings: Gunkel "Ecce Cyborg: The Subject of Communication" Ch 6 in HC
Mark Poster, "Postmodern Virtualties"
Online: htttp://www.humanities.uci.edu/mposter/writings/internet.html
Val Hill, "Postmodernism and Cinema" in RCTP
Video Excerpts: "Star Trek Next Generation: Best of Both Worlds" / "Battelstar Galactica" (Opening Segment/ Season1 Ep.2)
Student Case Study Presentation: Postmodern Film/VideoWeek 11 / Posthumanism: Monstrostity and Postmodernity
Readings: Halberstam, "Skinflick: Posthuman Gender in Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs" CH 9 in PH
Ch 5 / "Entropy, Chaos, and Organism in Postmodern Science" in PMT
Iain Hamilton Grant, "Postmodernism and science and technology" in RCtP
Supplemental Reading: David J. Gunkel, "Scary Monsters." International Studies in Philosophy 29(2). 1997, pp. 23-46. http://www.gunkelweb.com/writing.html (Click ARTICLES & ESSAYS; Scroll to the PDF File)
Film Excerpt: Silence of the Lambs; Film Excerpt: Frankenstein; Television Excerpt: The Elegant Universe (DVD1766)
Student Case Study Presentation: Postmodern Science
Week 12 / Postmodernism and Feminism
Readings: Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto" CH 10 in PH
Rabinowitz, "Soft Fictions & Intimate Documents: Can Feminism be Posthuman?" Ch 8 in PH
Sue Thornham, "Postmodernism and Feminism" in RCTP
Video Excerpts: "Donna Haraway reads from the National Geographic;" Video Excerpt: "Interview with Trinh T. Minh-Ha;" Excerpt from Reassemblage by Trinh T. Minh-Ha
Student Case Study Presentation: Postmodern Music / CompositionWeek 13 / Postmodern Bodies
Readings: Lyotard, "Can Thought Go on without a Body" Ch 14 in PH
Gunkel, "Corpus Amittere: Cyberspace and the Body" Ch 5 in HC
Bukatman, "Postcards from the Posthuman Solar System, " CH 12 in PH
John Storey, "Postmodernism and Popular Culture" in RCtP
Multimedia Excerpt: Bruce Sterling / "Bruce Sterling ueber Science-Fiction und Gruene-Fundis" at elektrische Reporter
http://www.elektrischer-reporter.de/index.php/site/film/35/
Multimedia Excerpt: "William Gibson: That Post-Geographical Feeling" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNs9iznzOj8&eurl=
Video Excerpt: "Robert Sterling: Guerilla warfare in the information age" Guerilla News Network
Week 14 / Final Examination due at Class meetingWeekly Class Meeting Agenda
The typical weekly seminar meeting will be structured with the following agenda:
I. Class Business
II. Reading Analysis, Part One
III. Reading Analysis, Part Two
IV. Screening Analysis (when applicable)
V. Student Case Study Presentation
© 2007 - Ann Hetzel Gunkel
agunkel@colum.edu
