New Marxist Theory

(Seminar) This course proposes to develop conceptual coordinates which will enable students to make sense of recent writing on politics, culture, and aesthetics by philosophers like Jacques Ranciere, Alain Badiou, and Slavoj Zizek as well as the much-debated theories of global capitalism by David Harvey, Immanuel Wallerstein, Giovanni Arrighi, Hardt/Negri, and others. What are the models of the world which are implicitly appealed to by critics interpreting cultural objects and practices? What sorts of interpretation do such models authorize?