Instructor: D. Papanikolaou
(Mini-seminar, meets April 7-23, 2014 only). This lecture mini-course, takes two of the most celebrated and influential thinkers and writers of the 20th century, Greek diaspora poet C.P.Cavafy (1863-1933) and French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984) and attempts to read them side by side, in the light of recently renewed critical emphasis on sexuality, biopolitics, queer temporality and ethics. Each lecture/seminar engages with a different theme: in each case, we will start from 3-4 Cavafy poems and extracts from Foucault, before branching out to key works in queer theory from the 1990s (Butler, Kosofsky-Sedgwick, Michael Warner), as well as questions raised by very recent debates in new queer theory (esp. on space, time, affect, politics and ethics).
The aim is to bring together questions of historical understanding, aesthetics and theory. Thus, our analysis will be positioned at the intersection of three parallel inquiries related to non-normative sexuality in/and modernity : a historical inquiry (the emergence of a homosexual subjectivity since the 18th century); a poetic inquiry (the aesthetics and ethics of sexual difference in modernity); a philosophical inquiry (encapsulated by the modern epistemologies of Foucault and queer theory, but also evident in the writings of such literary writers as Cavafy). Even though students will need to familiarize themselves with the writings of Foucault and Cavafy, as well as with central texts of queer theory, no prior knowledge of these fields is needed in order to follow the course.
