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Samuel Weber - Lectures / Workshops / Seminars

MEDIA AND THE UNCANNY: Freud, Heidegger and Derrida (3 Credits)

Samuel Weber, Ph.D.

Description: This course explores the philosophical concept of the uncanny as it bears on the media by reading Sigmund Freud, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida. We will trace the concept of the uncanny as it emerges and then analyze the multiple directions in which it has traveled. Throughout the course we will examine the innovative thinking of Samuel Weber as he pushes us in new directions.

Required Readings:

Sam Weber, The Legend of Freud (Cultural Memory in the Present) . Stanford University Press Expanded edition. May 2000. 180 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0804731217. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Jacques Derrida, The Spectre of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International. Routledge. October 1994. 198 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0415910455. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Sandman, in: Classic Tales Of Hoffmann. Penguin USA. Reprint edition. August 1990. Paperback, 411 pages, ISBN: 0140443924. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Cixous, Hélène. "Fiction and its Phantoms: A Reading of Freud's Das Unheimliche." in: New Literary History. Vol. 7, No. 3, 1976, p. 525-48.

Jentsch, Ernst. "On the Psychology of the Uncanny." in: Angelaki. Vol. 2, No. 1, 1996.

Krell, David Farrell. "Das Unheimliche: The Architectural Sections of Heidegger and Freud." in: Research in Phenomenology. Vol. 22, 1992, p. 43-61.

McNeill, Will. "A 'Scarcely Pondered Word...': The Place of Tragedy: Heidegger, Aristotle, Sophocles." in: Miguel de Beistegui and Simon Sparks (Editors). Philosophy and Tragedy. Routledge, 2000. pp. 169-189.

Weber, Samuel. "The Sideshow, or: Remarks on a Canny Moment." in: Modern Language Notes. Vol. 88, 1973, p. 1102-33.

Recommended Readings:

Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny. Penguin Classics, 2003. ISBN-10: 0142437476 ISBN-13: 978-0142437476. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Heidegger, Martin. Introduction into Metaphysics. Yale University Press , 2000. ISBN-10: 0300083289 ISBN-13: 978-0300083286. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Derrida, Jacques. Of Hospitality. Stanford University Press, 2000. ISBN-10: 0804734062 ISBN-13: 978-0804734066. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Weber, Sam. The Legend of Freud: Expanded Edition. Stanford University Press, 2000. ISBN-10: 0804731217 ISBN-13: 978-0804731218. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Weber, Sam. Theatricality as Medium. Fordham University Press, 2004. ISBN-10: 0823224163 ISBN-13: 978-0823224166. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.



MEDIA CAPITALISM: Walter Benjamin (3 Credits)

Samuel Weber, Ph.D.

Description: In a brief and unfinished fragment, 'Capitalism as Religion', Walter Benjamin begins by stating that whereas Max Weber argued that Protestantism (Calvinism) had promoted Capitalism, what he had not sufficiently recognized was the degree to which Capitalism itself was a religion, i.e. and in particular was the heir to certain aspects of Christianity. This course will explore some of the implications of Benjamin's intuition, which he himself was only in part able to elaborate. If Capitalism itself can be seen to function as a religion--and this requires a definition of just what a religion consists in --then the recent "return of the religious" can be understood not as an aberration, but as the outgrowth of the crisis of capitalism: i.e. of its inability to continue to fulfill the religious function it previous exercised.

The return of the religious thus would both confirm Capitalism as Religion and also suggest that the relationship between the two-- including the notion of "secularisation"-- has to be rethought. In addition to texts of Benjamin, the seminar will read Karl Marx on Commodity Fetishism, as well as Marx's chapter on the "Theater of Oklahama (sic!)", from his first, unfinished novel, previously translated as "Amerika" but more recently retranslated (more correctly) as "The Man who Disappeared."

Required Readings:

Weber, Samuel. Theatricality as Medium. Fordham University Press. October 1, 2004. ISBN: 0823224163. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Kafka, Franz and Michael Hofmann (Translator). Amerika: The Man Who Disappeared. New Directions Publishing Corp. May 2004. ISBN: 0811215695. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Marx, Karl, Ernest Mandel (Introduction) and Ben Fowkes (Translator). Capital: (Volume 1) A Critique of Political Economy. Karl Penguin Classics. May 5, 1992. ISBN: 0140445684. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Benjamin, Walter, Marcus Bullock (Editor) and Michael W. Jennings (Editor). Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 1 1913-1926. Belknap Press. 2004. ISBN: 0674013557. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Recommended Readings:

Weber, Max, Talcott Parsons and R.H. Tawney. The Protestant Ethic And The Spirit of Capitalism. Dover Publications. April 4, 2003. ISBN: 048642703X. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Benjamin, Walter, Roy Tiedemann (Editor), Howard Eiland (Translator) and Kevin MClaughlin (Translator). The Arcades Project. Belknap Press, March 2002. ISBN: 0674008022. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.



LITERARY THEORY: Psychoanalysis and Philosophy (3 Credits)

Samuel Weber, Ph.D.

Description: This course explores the shift to a media-oriented perception of reality and art by discussing theatricality as medium, Walter Benjamin, and the Uncanny.

Required Readings:

Weber, Samuel and Alan Cholodenko (Editor). Mass Mediauras: Essays on Form. Technics and Media. Power Publications/Stanford University Press. Sydney/Stanford, California, 1996, 235 pages, Language English, Hardcover, ISBN: 0804726752. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Weber, Samuel. The Legend of Freud. The University of Minnesota Press. 1982. Hardcover, 278 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0804731209. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr. Stanford University Press. 2000. Paperback, ISBN: 0804731217. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.