JUNE SESSION. June 1st – June 22nd, 2011
Media and Communication - First Year June, First Group
Media and Communication - First Year June, Second Group
Media and Communication - Second Year June
AUGUST SESSION. August 2nd - August 23rd, 2011
Media and Communication - First Year First Group
Media and Communication - First Year Second Group
Media and Communication - Second Year First Group
Media and Communication - Second Year Second Group
Note: Please be advised that all seminars, colloquia and workshops of EGS are conducted at the Campus in Saas-Fee, Wallis, Switzerland.
JUNE SESSION // June 1st – June 22nd, 2011.
Media & Communication: June First Year, First Group // June 1st – June 22nd, 2011.
Simon Critchley: PHILOSOPHY, ETHICS AND POLITICS. (3 credits)
This seminar will show how theory can bring us closer to understanding ‘where we are,’ and how we might think with and against the present.
Hendrik Speck: FREEDOM AND CONTROL: NETWORK THEORY. (3 credits)
Investigates the clash between freedom and control in cyberspace and evaluates the liberating impact of the Internet for media, art, and culture.
Chris Kraus: PERFORMATIVE PHILOSOPHY. (3 credits)
As we move through the sphere of creativity we will embrace the dirty areas of the creative process. Through a brave approach that takes no prisoners the course will push students to new perspectives and modes of being.
Friedrich Kittler: MEDIA HISTORY AND STRATEGIES. (3 credits)
Explores the history of communication media, focusing on technological innovations and forms a new understanding of the algorithmic infrastructure of the Internet, and its political, military, economic, and cultural impact.
Michael Hardt: THE COMMONS. (3 credits)
Revisiting the political sphere and its underlying philosophies and evaluating the potential for a perceptual change that includes the Internet.
Lev Manovich: SOFTWARE STUDIES. (3 credits)
Explores emerging work in software studies around the world and researches new ways of using software and cyberinfrastructure for cultural research.
Mandatory Seminars and Workshops:
Wolfgang Schirmacher: RESEARCH METHODS. (1 credit workshop for First Year students)
Introduction to basic research styles such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, dialectics, deconstruction in preparation for EGS dissertation projects.
Wolfgang Schirmacher: FOUNDATION IN MEDIA PHILOSOPHY. (1 credit workshop)
Introduces and explores the critical differences as well as productive blending of Communication Theory and Continental Philosophy which culminates in 'Media Philosophy'.
Virginia Cutrufelli: VENICE BIENNALE with excursion. (1 credit workshop).
Elective Seminars and Workshops:
Wolfgang Schirmacher: RESEARCH FOR DISSERTATION. (1 credit workshop)
Discussing projects for Ph.D. dissertations in order to find connections to philosophical works and locate directions for theoretical research.
Paul Virilio / Hubertus von Amelunxen: MEDIA, ART & POLITICS. (2 credits - invitation only)
Workshop with Paul Virilio in La Rochelle, France. April 4-5, 2011.
Media & Communication: June First Year, Second Group // June 1st – June 22nd, 2011.
Paul D.Miller aka DJ Spooky with Mitchell Joachim: ART UNBOUND. (3 credits)
A thoughtful demonstration of the power of the mix in art, writing and music, in collaboration with an invited guest.
Wolfgang Schirmacher: MEDIA CULTURE & ARTIFICIAL LIFE. (3 credits)
Explores media culture as post-technological event (Ereignis), possibilities for the art of living authentically (Geviert), and ethical dasein beyond metaphysics (Gelassenheit).
Sylvere Lotringer: JEAN BAUDRILLARD. (3 credits)
A tribute to the EGS faculty member who recently passed away: An examination of Jean Baudrillard's philosophical legacy and his impact on the critique of contemporary culture.
Claire Denis: CINEMA AS CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY. (3 credits)
Examines contemporary filmmaking as exploration into multi-ethnic and cross-cultural environments, with the cool passion and distanced engagement of an anthropologist.
Geert Lovink: POLITICS AND AESTHETICS OF THE WEB 2.0. (3 credits)
Provides an overview from blogs, search, online video, Wikipedia and social media to activist strategies like Wikileaks.
Samuel Weber: MEDIA AND THE UNCANNY. (3 credits)
Explores the philosophical concept of the uncanny as it bears on the media by reading Sigmund Freud, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida.
Mandatory Seminars and Workshops:
Wolfgang Schirmacher: RESEARCH METHODS. (1 credit workshop for First Year students)
Introduction to basic research styles such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, dialectics, deconstruction in preparation for EGS dissertation projects.
Wolfgang Schirmacher: FOUNDATION IN MEDIA PHILOSOPHY. (1 credit workshop)
Introduces and explores the critical differences as well as productive blending of Communication Theory and Continental Philosophy which culminates in 'Media Philosophy'.
Virginia Cutrufelli: VENICE BIENNALE with excursion. (1 credit workshop).
Elective Seminars and Workshops:
Wolfgang Schirmacher: RESEARCH FOR DISSERTATION. (1 credit workshop)
Discussing projects for Ph.D. dissertations in order to find connections to philosophical works and locate directions for theoretical research.
Paul Virilio / Hubertus von Amelunxen: MEDIA, ART & POLITICS. (2 credits - invitation only)
Workshop with Paul Virilio in La Rochelle, France. April 4-5, 2011.
Media & Communication: June Second Year // June 1st – June 22nd, 2011.
Werner Hamacher: CRITIQUE OF PURE FEELING. (3 credits)
Investigates the virtual, movement, affect, sensation, expressions after Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. The body thinks with pure feelings before it acts and sensation is a transformational call-back to feeling.
Diane Davis: JACQUES DERRIDA. (3 credits)
Examines fundamental paraconcepts of Jacques Derrida (différance, iterability, trace, supplentarity. . .) in relation to the three laws of logic (logocentrisms) that they deconstruct; special focus on the ethico-politics of aporia opened in the later works on hospitality, cosmopolitanism, and for(give)ness.
Volker Schlöndorff: LITERARY CINEMA. (3 credits)
Demonstrating the transformation of literary texts — of authors diverse as Günther Grass, Heinrich Böll, Marcel Proust, Michel Tournier, Margaret Atkins, — into cinematic art.
Jean Luc Nancy: ART, COMMUNITY AND FREEDOM. (3 credits)
Deconstructs the body, the communitary experience as well as the notion of freedom within the context of art and literature, myth and Christianity.
Victor J. Vitanza: LYOTARD: HESITATING THOUGHT. (3 credits)
The works of Jean-Francois-Lyotard: Just Gaming (with Jean-Loup Thébaud), Libidinal Economy, and The Differend: Phrases in Dispute. We will also study Laura Kipnis's Marx: A Video (in relation to Libidinal Economy); sections from Werner Herzog's Where the Green Ants Dream (in relation to The Differend); and John Hancock's Bang the Drum Slowly (in relation to Just Gaming).
Manuel De Landa: DELEUZE: SCIENCE & HISTORY. (3 credits)
Introduces Gilles Deleuze by using examples from economic, linguistic, military history as well as physics, mathematics, and biology. The virtuality-actuality of a realistic ontology and a materialistic ethics is explored.
Mandatory Seminars and Workshops:
Wolfgang Schirmacher: PH.D. TUTORIAL. (1 credit)
Discusses the outlines for possible M.A. thesis projects.
Elective Seminars and Workshops:
Wolfgang Schirmacher: RESEARCH FOR DISSERTATION. (1 credit workshop)
Discussing projects for Ph.D. dissertations in order to find connections to philosophical works and locate directions for theoretical research.
Paul Virilio / Hubertus von Amelunxen: MEDIA, ART & POLITICS. (2 credits - invitation only)
Workshop with Paul Virilio in La Rochelle, France. April 4-5, 2011.
AUGUST SESSION // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2011.
Media & Communication: August First Year, First Group // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2011.
Martin Hielscher: LITERATURE AS COMMUNICATION. (3 credits)
Introduces Literature as model of communication and stimulates creative writing and philosophical thinking. Includes a workshop with an eminent writer.
Bracha Ettinger: ART, PSYCHOANALYSIS, PHILOSOPHY: THE MATRIXIAL BORDERSPACE. (3 credits)
Aesthetic practice as rethinking ethics, in a feminist dialogue with Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Francois-Lyotard, Jacques Lacan, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari; enabling a dimension of emergence which underlies trauma, memory, representation and post-Lacanian subjectivity.
Pierre Alferi: ADVANCED EXPERIMENTAL FILM. (3 credits)
Theory and practice of experimental filmmaking will be explored – an exercise in cinematic poetry. Participants are encouraged to show and discuss their own work.
Geoffrey Bennington: DECONSTRUCTION: THE POLITICS OF DERRIDA. (3 credits)
Through a close textual analysis in the spirit of deconstruction this course moves beyond the static page towards a political reading of the power of deconstruction.
Michael Schmidt / Heiner Goebbels: MUSIC PHILOSOPHY & SOUND. (3 credits)
Discusses the philosophy of music of Arthur Schopenhauer, Roland Barthes and Theodor W. Adorno and explores the clashes and resonances between multiple styles and cultural approaches to music—from classical composition to rap, hip-hop and avant-garde sound collage.
Barbara Hammer: QUEER EXPERIMENTAL AND DOCUMENTARY FILM. (3 credits)
Using her own works (films, videos, book) as basis for exploring the emergence and growth of queer radical film, pioneer film artist Barbara Hammer juxtaposes and hypothesizes the continuing exciting possibilities of queer cinema.
Mandatory Seminars and Workshops:
Wolfgang Schirmacher: RESEARCH METHODS. (1 credit workshop)
Introduction to basic research styles such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, dialectics, deconstruction in preparation for EGS dissertation projects.
Sigrid Hackenberg: FOUNDATION IN MEDIA PHILOSOPHY. (1 credit workshop)
Introduces and explores the critical differences as well as productive blending of Communication Theory and Continental Philosophy which culminates in 'Media Philosophy'.
Wolfgang Schirmacher: PH.D. TUTORIAL. (1 credit)
Discusses outlines for possible M.A. thesis projects.
Elective Seminars and Workshops:
Suzanne Doppelt: ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY. (1 credit workshop)
Photography as non-representational language will be demonstrated and explored. Students have the opportunity to discuss their own work with an renowned French photographer.
Mark Daniel Cohen: ACADEMIC WRITING. (1 credit workshop)
With focus on the development of productive thesis statements and the organization and composition of coherent argumentation in order to prepare students to begin their thesis and Ph.D. dissertations.
Paul Virilio / Hubertus von Amelunxen: MEDIA, ART & POLITICS. (2 credits - invitation only)
Workshop with Paul Virilio in La Rochelle, France. April 4-5, 2011.
Media & Communication: August First Year, Second Group // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2011.
Giorgio Agamben: HOMO SACER. (3 credits)
A questioning of how radical subjectivity and the coming community can contribute to a paradigm of human existence.
Judith Balso with poet Nachoem M. Wijnberg: POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY. (3 credits)
The complex relationship between poetry and philosophy and the notion of poetry as a thought will be explored in a cordial dialogue with an internationally recognized poet. Alessandro de Francesco, Michel Deguy, Yang Lian, Jan Zwicky, Jacques Roubaud, Philippe Beck have participated previously.
Anne Dufourmantelle: SEX AND PHILOSOPHY. (3 credits)
How to understand hospitality in our mad age - a Derridean reading of social practices by a pithy psychoanalyst.
Laurence Rickels with artist Sterling Ruby : HAUNTED THOUGHT AND ART. (3 credits)
A critical analysis of the accidental structure and underworld happening in literature, performance and video art. An invited artist demonstrates the transformative processes involved.
Thomas Zummer: FOUCAULT. (3 credits)
A critical reading of the philosopher Michel Foucault who changed our understanding of modernity with his inquiries into madness, punishment, sexualit and the technologies of the self.
Leslie Thorton: SENSES OF CINEMA. (3 credits)
Rigorously experimental films beyond the cinematic borders will be presented and explored by a pioneed of media aesthetics and Whitney Biennale artist.
Mandatory Seminars and Workshops:
Wolfgang Schirmacher: RESEARCH METHODS. (1 credit workshop)
Introduction to basic research styles such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, dialectics, deconstruction in preparation for EGS dissertation projects.
Sigrid Hackenberg: FOUNDATION IN MEDIA PHILOSOPHY. (1 credit workshop)
Introduces and explores the critical differences as well as productive blending of Communication Theory and Continental Philosophy which culminates in 'Media Philosophy'.
Wolfgang Schirmacher: PH.D. TUTORIAL. (1 credit)
Discusses outlines for possible M.A. thesis projects.
Elective Seminars and Workshops:
Suzanne Doppelt: ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY. (1 credit workshop)
Photography as non-representational language will be demonstrated and explored. Students have the opportunity to discuss their own work with an renowned French photographer.
Mark Daniel Cohen: ACADEMIC WRITING. (1 credit workshop)
With focus on the development of productive thesis statements and the organization and composition of coherent argumentation in order to prepare students to begin their thesis and Ph.D. dissertations.
Paul Virilio / Hubertus von Amelunxen: MEDIA, ART & POLITICS. (2 credits - invitation only)
Workshop with Paul Virilio in La Rochelle, France. April 4-5, 2011.
Media & Communication: August Second Year, First Group // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2011.
Alenka Zupancic: NIETZSCHE AND LACAN. (3 credits)
A new reading of reading of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche challenges his “domestication” by postmodern thinkers and brings “The Real” into play again.
Alain Badiou: PHILOSOPHY, ETHICS, ART. (3 credits)
In defense of systematic philosophy and in a critical dialogue with Gilles Deleuze basic issues such as the ethics of fidelity, truth, politics, and art are rediscovered, proclaiming a manifesto for philosophy.
Avital Ronell: FINITUDE IN PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE AND ART. (3 credits)
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.
Carl Mitcham: ETHICS AND TECHNOLOGY. (3 credits)
Explores fundamental shifts in humanity and how they manifest itself in ethics and politics, with emphasis on the work of the philosopher Hans Jonas.
Siegfried Zielinski: AUDIOVISUAL HISTORY AND TECHNOCULTURE. (3 credits)
Surveys the history of mediations through which ideas and visual representation have become a material force. It enables an archeology of hearing and seeing by technical means.
Wolfgang Schirmacher: MEDIA AESTHETICS. (3 credits)
An active perception of the just and beautiful allows for a transformative experience of information technology as well as biotechnology.
Mandatory Seminars and Workshops:
Wolfgang Schirmacher: PH.D. TUTORIAL. (1 credit)
Discusses outlines for possible M.A. thesis projects.
Elective Seminars and Workshops:
Suzanne Doppelt: ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY. (1 credit workshop)
Photography as non-representational language will be demonstrated and explored. Students have the opportunity to discuss their own work with an renowned French photographer.
Mark Daniel Cohen: ACADEMIC WRITING. (1 credit workshop)
With focus on the development of productive thesis statements and the organization and composition of coherent argumentation in order to prepare students to begin their thesis and Ph.D. dissertations.
Paul Virilio / Hubertus von Amelunxen: MEDIA, ART & POLITICS. (2 credits - invitation only)
Workshop with Paul Virilio in La Rochelle, France. April 4-5, 2011.
Media & Communication: August Second Year, Second Group // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2011.
Brian Holmes: WORLD ON SCREEN. (3 credits)
Using art works, technical artifacts and social theory, the course uncovers a “philosophy of finance” behind two key domains of contemporary capitalism: just-in-time production and computerized trading. Felix Guattari's aesthetics of rhythmic experience provides an answer to this dominant philosophy.
Judith Butler: ETHICS AND POLITICS AFTER THE SUBJECT. (3 credits)
Addresses theories of the subject and explores issues of gender politics, subversion of identity, power, ethical violence.
Christopher Fynsk: HEIDEGGER: PHILOSOPHY AND ART. (3 credits)
Explores the future potential of Martin Heidegger, one of Europe's most influential 20th century philosophers and addresses divergent practices of thought and art in post-Heideggerian thinkers.
Hubertus von Amelunxen: PHILOSOPHY OF PHOTOGRAPHY & FILM. (3 credits)
Explores issues of meaning and representation, the interface of photography, video, and film, and the terror of the body in digital space (with emphasis on Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin and Vilem Flusser).
Wolfgang Schirmacher: SCHOPENHAUER – LIVING DISASTER. (3 credits)
A timely reading of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and his radical turn from spirit to body which influenced Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Frankfurt School but also composers such as Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss as well as writers such as Samuel Beckett, Andre Gide and Jorge Louis Borges.
Elia Suleiman: CINEMA OF RESISTANCE. (3 credits)
Addresses the relationship between philosophies of resistance and films that serve as forms of resistance and analyzes the political turmoil within Palestine and the tensions between Muslims and Christians in the modern political climate.
Mandatory Seminars and Workshops:
Wolfgang Schirmacher: PH.D. TUTORIAL. (1 credit)
Discusses outlines for possible M.A. thesis projects.
Elective Seminars and Workshops:
Suzanne Doppelt: ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY. (1 credit workshop)
Photography as non-representational language will be demonstrated and explored. Students have the opportunity to discuss their own work with an renowned French photographer.
Mark Daniel Cohen: ACADEMIC WRITING. (1 credit workshop)
With focus on the development of productive thesis statements and the organization and composition of coherent argumentation in order to prepare students to begin their thesis and Ph.D. dissertations.
Paul Virilio / Hubertus von Amelunxen: MEDIA, ART & POLITICS. (2 credits - invitation only)
Workshop with Paul Virilio in La Rochelle, France. April 4-5, 2011.