Arendt and Castoriadis
Term:
Spring 2011
Subject Code:
GPHI
Course Number:
6646
What is the
role that imagination plays in politics? How should we evaluate it? Is
imagination simply the faculty to represent what does not exist or is it, more
radically, the faculty to produce images that mediate our political life? Are
we the producers or the products of the social imaginaries we live in?
This
seminar tackles these issues by analysing key texts by Hannah Arendt and
Cornelius Castoriadis, two philosophers who have devoted systematic reflections
to the topic. In particular, we will focus on Arendt’s Lectures on Kant’s
Political Philosophy and on Castoriadis’ Imaginary Institution of
Society. Students are encouraged to read and comment these texts by
situating them in their context, but also by connecting them to timely issues
such as the role of political imagination in a world dominated by the media and
by an increasing spectacularisation of politics.
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