JUNE SESSION. June 1st – June 22nd, 2010
New Media and Internet Studies
Media and Communications - First Year June
Media and Communications - Second Year June
AUGUST SESSION. August 2nd - August 23rd, 2010
Media and Communications - First Year First Group
Media and Communications - First Year Second Group
Media and Communications - Second Year First Group
Media and Communications - 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, 2010.
New Media & Internet Studies: First and Second Year // June 1st – June 22nd, 2010.
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.
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.
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.
Bruce Sterling: CYBEROCRACY: TOMORROW NOW. (3 credits)
An intensive dialogue with a prolific writer and one of the leading web theorists, focusing on recent developments in cyberspace and exploring futurist options.
Geert Lovink: ZERO COMMENTS AND THE BLOGOSPHERE. (3 credits)
Provides an overview of the blogosphere, distributed aesthetics, social interaction, web design, and the creative process.
Allucquére Rosanne Stone: TECHNOLOGIES OF THE BODY. (3 credits)
Reviews prior and current work in theory and practices of the political economy of the body in dialogue with technology, nature, art, and the collapse of those categories into the disruptive and oppositional construct we will call the technobody.
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.
Sigrid Hackenberg / Wolfgang Schirmacher: FOUNDATION IN MEDIA PHILOSOPHY. (1 credit workshop for First Year students)
Introduces and explores the critical differences as well as productive blending of Communication Theory and Continental Philosophy which culminates in 'Media Philosophy'.
Wolfgang Schirmacher: M.A. TUTORIAL. (1 credit workshop for Second Year students)
Discusses students' outlines for possible M.A. thesis projects.
Media & Communications: June First Year // June 1st – June 22nd, 2010.
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.
Barbara Hammer: EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA. (3 credits)
Recovering the missing histories of lesbians, bisexuals and gays in Western culture and addressing political as well as ethical-aesthetical challenges by pioneering an essay documentary style.
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.
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.
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.
Wolfgang Schirmacher: RESEARCH METHODS. (1 credit workshop)
Introduction to basic research styles such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, dialectics, deconstruction in preparation for EGS thesis projects.
Sigrid Hackenberg / 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'.
Media & Communications: June Second Year // June 1st – June 22nd, 2010.
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.
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).
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.
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: 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).
Wolfgang Schirmacher: M.A. TUTORIAL. (1 credit)
Discusses the outlines for possible M.A. thesis projects.
AUGUST SESSION // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2010.
Media & Communications: August First Year First Group // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2010.
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.
Michael Taussig: FICTOCRITICISM. (3 credits)
Where storytelling and critical philosophy unite--as formulated (but not in practice carried out) in Theodor Adorno's essay on the essay a form, neither art nor science but certainly playful. It can be called Corn-Wolf writing, based on a Nervous System epistemology.
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.
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: 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.
Peter Greenaway: CINEMA FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM. (3 credits)
A departure from the disenchantment with contemporary cinema which offers alternatives by considering a hybrid of cinematic art and new media environments. This approach simultaneously realizes a visual language independent of storytelling and identification.
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 / 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'.
Media & Communications: August First Year Second Group // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2010.
Victor Burgin: ART AND PSYCHOANALYSIS: THE OBJECT IN QUESTION. (3 credits)
A survey of the idea of the 'object' in psychoanalytic theory provides a framework for considering the subjective dimension of encounters with 'objective' reality.
Alenka Zupancic: NIETZSCHE. (3 credits)
A new reading of reading of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche challenges his “domestication” by postmodern thinkers and brings “The Real” into play again.
Laurence Rickels with artist: 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.
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. Alessandro de Francesco, Michel Deguy, Yang Lian, Jan Zwicky, Jacques Roubaud, Philippe Beck have participated previously.
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.
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 / 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'.
Media & Communications: August Second Year First Group // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2010.
Giorgio Agamben: HOMO SACER. (3 credits)
A questioning of how radical subjectivity and the coming community can contribute to a paradigm of human existence.
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.
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.
Francois Noudelman: AFFINITIES IN PHILOSOPHY, ARTS, AND SCIENCE. (3 credits)
A transdisciplinary search for hidden patterns with revealing and concealing powers.
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.
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.
Wolfgang Schirmacher: M.A. TUTORIAL. (1 credit)
Discusses outlines for possible M.A. thesis projects.
Media & Communications: August Second Year Second Group // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2010.
Martin Hielscher: ADORNO’S AESTHETICS. (3 credits)
A subtle and sophisticated introduction into of the main works of the Frankfurt School philosopher Theodor W. Adorno as well as an invitation to philosophy as aesthetic experience.
Brian Massumi: 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.
Erin Manning: IN MOVING COLOR. (3 credits)
Explores the active relation between light and movement for the experience of perception. Readings include William James, Alfred North Whitehead, William Forsythe, Henri Bergson, and Gilles Deleuze.
Atom Egoyan: FILM ART & CINEMATIC LANGUAGES. (3 credits)
Approaches film as a discovery process in which alienation, absurdity, exploitation, isolation are conducive to the development of cinematic languages. The Canadian filmmaker emphasizes the philosophy, psychology and sociology of the experience of cinema.
Simon McBurney: EVOLVING THEATER. (3 credits)
The artistic director of Complicite in London discusses his work integrating text, music, image and action to create surprising disruptive theater.
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.
Wolfgang Schirmacher: M.A. TUTORIAL. (1 credit)
Discusses the students' outlines for possible thesis projects.
SELECTIVE SEMINARS // (Extracurricular, open to all students).
Extracurricular, all students // Saturday, May 1th, 2010 - Sunday, May 2nd, 2010
Brian Holmes: FOUR PATHWAYS THROUGH CHAOS. (2 credit workshop)
An investigation of art, cultural theory and activism; the process of systemic change unfolding in lived experience, and the pathways toward a new social order.
Extracurricular, all students // Monday, June 8th, 2010.
Michael Anker: RESEARCH FOR M.A. THESIS / DISSERTATION. (1 credit workshop)
Discussing projects for M.A. theses and Ph.D. dissertations in order to find connections to philosophical works and locate directions for theoretical research.
Extracurricular, all students // Sunday, August 9th, 2010.
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.
Extracurricular, all students // Sunday, August 9th, 2010.
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.