Reading Levinas
Term:
SPRING 2013
Subject Code:
GPHI
Course Number:
6674
Levinas is one of the greatest and most unusual philosophical prose stylists of the 20th Century. His work does not so much present arguments as waves of repeated rhetorical intensity that are possessed of a rare beauty, insight and depth. The aim of this seminar is very simple: to read Levinas's work extremely carefully and slowly and as much as possible in the original French. Our main focus will be Levinas's magnum opus, Totalite et Infini (1961), but we will also read closely a number of earlier and later texts, from De l"evasion (1935) to Autrement qu'etre ou au-dela de l'essence (1974). Some knowledge of the French language would be extremely welcome.
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