2024 Fall
FRENCH 281 001 - SEM 001
Interdisciplinary Topics in Literary and Cultural Studies
Touch: Philosophy, Art, Literature, Film
Henry Ravenhall
Class #:26472
Units: 4
Instruction Mode:
In-Person Instruction
Offered through
French
Current Enrollment
Total Open Seats:
1
Enrolled: 9
Waitlisted: 0
Capacity: 10
Waitlist Max: 5
No Reserved Seats
Hours & Workload
3 hours of student-instructor coverage of course materials per week, and 9 hours of outside work hours per week.
Other classes by Henry Ravenhall
Course Catalog Description
An interdisciplinary, cross-century and/or comparative examination of
topics in literary and cultural studies. Materials relating directly to French
Studies will normally constitute at least 25% of all class materials.
Class Description
In this seminar, we’ll read and dissect important works that deal with touch from a range of theoretical and critical perspectives. If touch, for Aristotle, is the base, most material sense, it is also what allows a thinking of sense to be possible at all. A thinking of touch pervades western philosophy, which Jacques Derrida took to task precisely for its “haptocentrism”. In the first few weeks of the seminar, we’ll work through some of the philosophical complexities linked to touch, paying particular attention to the thought of Jean-Luc Nancy. We’ll then turn to more recent work on touching art, from cave painting to medieval icons, from oil painting to modernist sculpture. We’ll also put pressure on the “phenomenological” turn in Film Theory and especially the influential model of “haptic visuality” (as Laura U. Marks reads Gilles Deleuze). In the second half of the course, we’ll think about touch more expansively in relation to: queerness and the archive (Roland Barthes and Carolyn Dinshaw); affect and reading; Didier Anzieu’s “skin-ego”; ethics (Emmanuel Levinas’ caress); erotics and intimacy; and, finally, the digital. Although many of the readings are originally in French, English translations will also be made available, and discussion will be in English. Seminar members will work towards a research paper in which they reread a cultural artefact from a theoretical perspective informed by the figure of touch.
Rules & Requirements
Repeat Rules
Reserved Seats
Current Enrollment
No Reserved Seats
Textbooks & Materials
See class syllabus or https://calstudentstore.berkeley.edu/textbooks for the most current information.
Guide to Open, Free, & Affordable Course Materials
Associated Sections
None