• Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault
• The Postmodern Condition, Jean-Francois Lyotard
• additional photocopies and on-line texts (on-line texts available through the "Assignments" page at the course website—on-campus access only)

This course will introduce upper-level students to the writings of some of the key figures of continental philosophy (mainly French and German) from the twentieth century. This course will omit important thinkers such as Sartre and Heidegger since these figures are considered in another course, PHL-255 Existentialism.  We will spend the bulk of our time with the thought of four figures: Habermas, Lyotard, Derrida and Foucault.  We will not seek a comprehensive review of the philosophical work of these figures (especially since some of them are still alive!). Instead, we will focus on gaining an understanding of certain selected texts from each philosopher. This may give a limited introduction to these thinkers, but this course stresses skills in reading primary philosophical texts that can only be achieved by careful consideration of specific texts. Secondary sources will be available for aiding our understanding of the larger framework of thought within which these texts appear, however, class time will be devoted to gaining an interpretation of these texts. This course is also aimed at providing students with the experience of achieving an understanding of a text and a philosopher on their own, through independent projects.

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As an upper level undergraduate seminar in philosophy, students will be expected to come to class having prepared the readings. The expectation will not be that they necessarily have “mastered” the texts), but that they are able to raise questions about the material and suggest passages and/or issues that would be helpful to discuss in class. A further expectation of students in this class will be that they spend time with second¬ary material in order to make sense of the primary readings, some of which will be fairly challenging. Particularly apt secondary material will be listed on the "additional resources" page of the course website (most of this secondary material will be available on reserve in the library and the rest will be accessible on-line through the resources page itself). This class also includes a web-based discussion room (see course website), where students can pose and respond to questions related to course materials.  On occasion the instructor may require students to complete short in-class writing exercises in order to gauge the preparedness of students and to foster in-class participation. These forms of participation all count toward a class participation grade for the course which will count 15% of course grade.  Class participation will be graded on the basis of student performance: attendance; preparation; quality of in-class participation, including any short writing assignments.

Each student will be working adjacent to the course materials on an analysis of a text and a subsequent paper as part of an independent project. For this project each student will be required to choose a key philosophical figure from twentieth century continental philosophy and a text (in consultation with instructor) which will serve as an entry into that figure’s thought. Each student will submit a textual summary and interpretation (target length = 6-7 pages) to the instructor.  After discussion of this textual analysis with the instructor, each student is required to go on and write a paper (target length = 10 pages) discussing and evaluating an important concept or theme from this philosopher which is encountered in the text they analyzed, but perhaps appears in other works as well. Before Thanksgiving Break each student will make his/her paper available to other students in the class and then after Thanksgiving each student will lead a discussion on his/her paper. The term paper will count for 22% of the course grade, the textual analysis will count for 12%. 

Each student will also be required to complete three exams.  Each exam will each count for 17% of the final grade.

The final course grade is broken down as follows: 15% = class participation grade; 51% = three exam grades; 34% = two paper grades.

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