JUNE SESSION. June 1st – June 22nd, 2012
Media and Communication - June First Year First Group
Media and Communication - June First Year Second Group
Media and Communication - June Second Year First Group
Media and Communication - June Second Year Second Group
AUGUST SESSION. August 2nd - August 23rd, 2012
Media and Communication- August First Year First Group
Media and Communication - August First Year Second Group
Media and Communication - August Second Year First Group
Media and Communication - August Second Year Second Group
Note: Please be advised that all seminars, colloquia and workshops of EGS are conducted at the Steinmatte Campus in Saas-Fee, Wallis, Switzerland. (How to get to Saas-Fee by air, rail, and road.)
JUNE SESSION // June 1st – June 22nd, 2012.
Media & Communication: June First Year, First Group // June 1st – June 22nd, 2012.
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.
Slavoj Žižek: HEGEL: NECESSITY AND CONTINGENCY. (3 credits)
A provocative reading of Hegel which connects his so-called idealism to contemporary philosophical, psychoanalytical and aesthetic discussion, and the emphasis on Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Lacan, Quantum Theory, and the contingency as Hegel’s driving motive.
Peter Singer and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek: UTILITARIAN ETHICS FOR THE LIVING. (3 credits)
Discussing the utilitarian answers to the ethics of living, for humans as well as for animals, with emphasis on the work of Henry Sidgwick.
Hendrik Speck: NETWORKS, CODE AND RELIGION. (3 credits)
Investigates the clash between freedom and control in cyberspace, the liberating impact of the Internet for media, art, and culture, and the similarities between code and religion.
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 AND DIGITAL HUMANITIES. (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'.
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.
Media & Communication: June First Year, Second Group // June 1st – June 22nd, 2012.
Mitchell Joachim: ARCHITECTURE, URBAN AND ECOLOGICAL DESIGN. (3 credits)
In the tradition of Buckminster Fuller reviving the futurist vision of the fusion between urbanism, the shape of architecture, the construction of non-linear environments, synthetic biology – a bold approach to “Eutopia”, the good place to live.
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.
François Noudelmann: AFFINITIES IN PHILOSOPHY, ARTS, AND SCIENCE. (3 credits)
A transdisciplinary search for hidden patterns with revealing and concealing powers.
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.
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.
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'.
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.
Media & Communication: June Second Year, First Group// June 1st – June 22nd, 2012.
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.
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).
Denise Riley: IMPERSONAL PASSION: LANGUAGE AS AFFECT. (3 credits)
The intimate experience with words in contemporary poetry, language and philosophy opens up a different understanding of selves in identification, solidarity, and irony.
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.
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.
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).Mandatory Seminars and Workshops:
Wolfgang Schirmacher: M.A. TUTORIAL. (1 credit)
Discusses the outlines for possible M.A. thesis projects.
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.
Media & Communication: June Second Year, Second Group // June 1st – June 22nd, 2012.
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).
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.
Manthia Diawara: TRADITION, EXILE AND EMMIGRATION. (3 credits)
New forms of aesthetics and culture based on experience of African-Americans will be explored and demonstrated in cinema, comparative literature, cultural differences.
Eduardo Cadava: GENEALOGIES OF MEMORY AND PERCEPTION. (3 credits)
A Benjaminian meditation on the nature of photography in general and an exploration about what it means to read an image historically.
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.
Catherine Breillat: SEXUALITY AS CINEMATIC OBJECT. (3 credits)
Examines sexuality and its relationship to film. Through examining the work of Catherine Breillat we will begin to uncover the nature of sexuality as it is revealed through autobiographical films.
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.
AUGUST SESSION // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2012.
Media & Communication: August First Year, First Group // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2012.
Martin Hielscher and Ilija Trojanow: LITERATURE AS COMMUNICATION. (3 credits)
Introduces Literature as model of communication and stimulates creative writing and philosophical thinking. Includes a workshop with a guest author such as Marcel Beyer, Durs Grünbein, Shelley Jackson, Michel Houellebecq, Julian Barnes, Nicholson Baker, Colum McCann, or Nuruddin Farah.
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.
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.
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.
Michael Schmidt and DJ Spooky: 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.
Media & Communication: August First Year, Second Group // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2012.
Judith Balso with poet: 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. Jacques Roubaud, Yang Lian, Jan Zwicky, Michel Deguy, Alessandro de Francesco, Philippe Beck, Nachoem Wijnberg have participated previously.
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.
Giorgio Agamben: HOMO SACER. (3 credits)
A questioning of how radical subjectivity and the coming community can contribute to a paradigm of human existence.
Thomas Zummer: MICHAEL FOUCAULT. (3 credits)
A critical reading of the philosopher Michel Foucault who changed our understanding of modernity with his inquiries into madness, punishment, sexuality and the technologies of the self.
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.
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.
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.
Media & Communication: August Second Year, First Group // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2012.
Slavoj Žižek: MEDIA, POLITICS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS. (3 credits)
Links key psychoanalytical and philosophical concepts to social phenomena such as pop culture and political fantasies; a Lacanian reading with emphasis on the metastases of enjoyment and imagination.
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.
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.
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 Robert Bramkamp: 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. Martha Rosler, Sue de Beer, and Diana Thater have participated previously
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.
Media & Communication: August Second Year, Second Group // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2012.
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, André Gide and Jorge Luis Borges.
Rachel K.Ward with guest from fashion industry: FASHION DESIGN. (3 credits)
Fashion is no longer a game of the few; its playful spirit has pervaded lifestyles and cultural choices, expressing a new understanding of living for the day. Critical discussion of this development, avoiding fashionable critical cliches.
Jacques Rancière: SHOWING, TELLING, DOING. (3 credits)
Discussing the political question of the use and valua of images, the political significance and meaning of showing, and the extent to which showing can be equated with telling and with demonstrating..
Mike Figgis: ADVANCED INDEPENDENT FILMMAKING. (3 credits)
Focuses on the idea of narrative and non-linear storytelling, Blending the creative and the practical; Covering the practical aspects of directing, producing and writing films.
Catherine Malabou: PLASTICITY, SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. (3 credits)
Spiritedly advancing the concept of ‘plasticity’ as an contribution to the end of Metaphysics (Martin Heidegger). The “transformational masks” of Claude Lévi-Strauss are investigated as well as Hegel’s dialectics and the Derridean "differance".
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).
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, 2012.