Avital Ronell - Lectures / Workshops /Seminars

FINITUDE IN PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE & ART: Singularity and Absence (3 Credits)

Avitall Ronell, Ph.D.

Description: This course explores the finitude of language and the singularity of the ethical event in a culture of absence, disappearance, and escape in relation to memory, fiction, and the human. We will examine the themes of stupidity, trauma, friendship, forgiveness and testing. As we explore these themes we will look at the works of Karl Marx, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. We will examine the works of Jacques Derrida and Avital Ronell in depth.

Course Schedule:

Module One: Stupidity
This module examines Marx and the fourth world force. We also look at Rousseau and the fifth reverie or the foundation of self. Finally we examine Kant the dynamic sublime and the mathematical sublime.

Module Two: Trauma
Module Two begins with the withdrawal of being and the residue left behind. We will examine mourning and the spaces between absence and presence. We look at the 'Space Between' -- what you are, what you are intended to be. Also, we examine the Teaching Process & Trauma. The Process is examined through Denial, Disavow and Reality Testing. Finally we look at the Response. Repeat, Get On, and Get Over.

Module Three: Friendship
This module looks at Recindability: 'Testing Your Love or Breaking Up’. Then we work with Rhythm and failure to meet it's end. Next we jump towards betrayal, the good & the bad. We will look at Couples through the example of Abraham & Isaac. And we examine Death & Friendship.

Module Four: Forgiveness
Module Four examines: Memory & Forgetting, Wrongdoing / the Irreparable, Accusing a Collectivity, Grace.

Module Five: Testing -- An Endless Erasure of ‘What Is’
We will examine the conflict between the Actual vs. the Possible and Mistrust vs. Faith, as well as the themes of Destruction & Devastation.

Required Readings:

Ronell, Avital and Davis, Diane. The UberReader: Selected Works of Avital Ronell. University of Illinois Press. December 17, 2007. Paperback, 400 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0252073118. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Ronell, Avital. Crack Wars: Literature Addiction Mania (Texts and Contexts). University of Illinois Press. February 24, 2004. Paperback, 192 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0252071905. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Ronell, Avital. Stupidity. Univ of Illinois Press. April 2001, Hardcover, ISBN: 0252026136.Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Recommended Readings:

Derrida, Jacques and Alan Bass (Translator). Writing and Difference. University of Chicago Press. December 1978. Hardcover, 342 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0226143287. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Derrida, Jaques and Rachel Bowlby (Translator). Of Hospitality. Stanford University Press. September 18, 1997. Hardcover, 176 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0804734054. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr. Paperback, ISBN: 0804734062. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Ronell, Avital. Dictations: On Haunted Writing. University of Nebraska Press. November 1993, 202 pages, Reprint edition, Paperback, ISBN: 0803289456. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Ronell, Avital. Telephone Book: Technology, Schizophrenia, Electric Speech. University of Nebraska Press. December 1989, 465 pages, Hardcover, ISBN: 0803238762. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.