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Alenka Zupančič - Lectures / Workshops / Seminars

NIETZSCHE AND LACAN: A Fresh Perspective (3 Credits)

Alenka Zupančič, Ph.D.

Description: The courses will focus on two main questions, both in relation to Friedrich Nietzsche and to Freudo-Lacanian psychoanalysis. Through discussion and readings this course willl examine focus around two themes, Negativity and Real. When speaking of Negativity, we will examime multiple forms of negation. We will discuss the ontological status of "nothing" while also examining the possibilities of affirmation. The second theme and/or question involves the Real. We will look at doubles of the real while examining the real and the impossible. This course will also examine the realism debate in contemporary philosophy.

Objectives: This course aims to inform students in the thinking and theories surrounding Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacques Lacan and others. We will push forward questions related to the real and negativity. Students are expected to come to the course prepared to discuss the above concepts. Students should also come with their own projects and be willing to discuss their relationship to the theorists discussed.

Recommended Readings:

Nietzsche, Friedrich Walter Kaufmann (Translator). "Book 4" in: The Gay Science : With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs (Vintage). Vintage. January 12, 1974, 1st edition, Paperback, 416 pages, ISBN: 0394719859. Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Freud, Sigmund. "Negation." in: Beyond the Pleasure Principle, The Ego and the Id and other works. Penguin Books. Vol 11. 1964. pp. 437-442. Paperback, Language English, ISBN: 0140217401. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Hyppolite, Jean. "A spoken Commentary on Freud's 'Verneinung'." in: Jacques Lacan and Bruce Fink (Translator). Ecrits. W.W. Norton & Company. 2006. pp.746-754. Paperback, 896 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0393329259. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Lacan, Jacques. "Response to Jean Hyppolite's Commentary on Freud's 'Verneinung'." in: Jacques Lacan and Bruce Fink (Translator). Ecrits. W.W. Norton & Company. 2006. pp. 318-333. Paperback, 896 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0393329259. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Brassier, Ray. "Chapter 7 (The Truth of Extinction)." in: Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction. Palgrave Macmillan. 2010. Paperback, 275 pages, Language English, ISBN: 023052205X. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Meillassoux, Quentin. After Finitude. Continuum. 2008. Paperback, 160 pages, Language English, ISBN: 1441173838. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener. (different editions)





NIETZSCHE AND LACAN: Challenging Domestication (3 Credits)

Alenka Zupančič, Ph.D.

Description: This course offers a new reading of reading of Friedrich Nietzsche that challenges his “domestication" by postmodern thinkers and brings “The Real" into play again. The reading of Jacques Lacan also takes the concept of the Real for its orientating point in examining the possible implications of his theory for philosophical ontology, politics and science. At stake is not a comparison between the two thinkers, but rather the ways in which they can help us confront central problems of contemporary philosophy from unexpected, surprising and often most productive perspectives.

Objectives: This course aims to open philosophical conversation in the direction of the unfamiliar. Through examining key thinkers in collaboration with the works of Zupančič this course pushes students thinking to new levels. Students are expected to come to the course with a background in the works of Jacques Lacan, Friedrich Nietzsche and Alenka Zupančič.

Learning Outcomes: At the end of this course students will be prepared to challenge contemporary postmodern attempts to domesticate Friedrich Nietzsche through a deep understanding of the theoretical implications of a new examination of the Real. Students will leave this course with the skills necessary to teach and write on the works of Jacques Lacan and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Required Readings:

Lacan, Jacques. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. W. W. Norton & Company. April 17, 1998. Bk. 11, Paperback, 304 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0393317757. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Nietzsche, Friedrich and Helen Zimmern (Translator). Beyond Good and Evil. (English).

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Antichrist. (English).

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. . (English).

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spake Zarathustra A book for all and none . Thomas Common (Translator). (English).

Zupančič, Alenka. The Odd One In: On Comedy. The MIT Press. 2008. Paperback, 240 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0262740311. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Zupančič, Alenka. Why Psychoanalysis?: Three Interventions. NSU Press. 2008. Hardcover, 80 pages, Language English, ISBN: 8787564092. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Zupančič, Alenka. The Shortest Shadow. Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Two. MIT Press. 2002. Paperback, 201 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0262740265. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Zupančič, Alenka. Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan. Verso. 2000. Hardcover, 266 pages, Language English, ISBN: 1859847242. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr. Paperback, ISBN: 1859842186. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Recommended Readings:

Zupančič, Alenka. "On Repetition." in: Sats. Vol. 8, No. 1, 2007. (English).

Zupančič, Alenka. "Psychoanalysis." in: Constantin V. Boundas. (Editor). The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-century Philosophies. Edinburgh University Press. 2007. Hardcover, 640 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0748620974. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Zupančič, Alenka. "Lying on the couch: psychoanalysis and the question of the lie." in: Jochen Mecke (Editor). Cultures of lying: Theories and Practice of Lying in Society. Literature, and Film. Galda & Wilch Verlag. 2007. Hardcover, 378 pages, Language English, ISBN: 1931255210. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Zupančič, Alenka. "Enthusiasm, Anxiety and the Event." in: Parallax. Volume 11, Issue 4, October 2005. (English).

Zupančič, Alenka. "Enthusiasm, Anxiety and the Event." in: Parallax. Volume 11, Issue 4, October 2005. (English).

Zupančič, Alenka. "Ethics and Tragedy in Lacan" in: The Cambridge Companion to Lacan. Cambridge University Press. 2003. Hardcover, 318 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0521807441. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Zupančič, Alenka. "The splendor of creation: Kant, Nietzsche, Lacan." in: (U)mbra. No. 1, 1999, pp. 35-42. (English).





NIETZSCHE: The Role of Language and Metaphysics (3 credits)

Alenka Zupančič, Ph.D.

Description: This course focuses on the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. We will discuss the role of language in a metaphysical worldview. We will also examine the role of metaphor and the relationship between language and metaphysics. The course will spend time analyzing the tragic world of the Greeks and Nietzsche's hopes for rekindling this. It will be essential to analyze the distinction between the Apollonian and the Dionysian.

Objectives: Students shall leave this course with a firm grasp on the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and his relationship to contemporary philosophical debates. As we move through the course materials we will push ourselves to new readings and interpretations of Nietzsche.

Course Schedule:

Module One
Introduction: Language and Metaphysics: Chiasmic Unity

Module Two
Tragedy in the Greek World.

Module Three
The "Ureine" and the world as an "aesthetic phenomenon"

Module Four
Perspectivism; Will to Power and God is Dead

Required Readings:

Friedrich Nietzsche, Raymond Geuss (Editor), Ronald Speirs (Editor), Karl Ameriks (Series Editor), Desmond M. Clarke (Series Editor). Nietzsche: The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy). Cambridge University Press. New Ed edition, April 22, 1999, Paperback, 203 pages, ISBN: 0521639875. Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Beyond Good and Evil: Preliminaries to a Philosophy of the Future. Translator Walter Kaufmann. Vintage Books. December 1989, 256 pages, Paperback, ISBN: 0679724656. Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Walter Kaufmann (Translator). The Gay Science : With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs (Vintage). Vintage. January 12, 1974, 1st edition, Paperback, 416 pages, ISBN: 0394719859. Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Will to Power. Vintage. August 12, 1968. Paperback 608 pages, ISBN: 0394704371. Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo. Vintage. December 17, 1989, Paperback 384 pages, ISBN: 0679724621. Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.