Course schedule

NB: For a more detailed description of the class topic and assigned reading, please see the course page on Moodle.

Week 1: Introduction: Course overview. The crisis of liberal democracy and the new cold war.

Weeks 2-4: C. Schmitt’s concept of the political; his critique of liberalism and parliamentary democracy

Week 5: C. Mouffe’s critique of the 1990s liberal moment, her agonistic theory of democracy

Weeks 6-7: The notion of biopolitics in the works of H. Arendt and M. Foucault

Week 8-10: Biopolitics, sovereignty and the state of exception in the work of G. Agamben

Weeks 11-12: Truth and politics, or on the political responsibility of intellectuals. (H. Arendt and L. Struass)