The Multiform Elsewhere

While Western thought has a long tradition of
absolutes-isolating self from environment, active
from passive, cause from effect, there have always
been strands of thought that complicate, refuse,
or upend this model, and focus instead on the
intersubjectivity or interdependence of our minds,
bodies and the world. Some of these strands are
feminist; some anti-colonial; some psychoanalytic,
some ecological; some phenomenological; some
ethical; some biological; and so on. This advanced
seminar consists of close-readings of (often)
complicated texts which take up this concept as
their focus. Along the way we will touch on issues
of distributed agency, will, perception,
technology, blame, imbrication, "the plural
subject," diversity & specificity, infinity,
sovereignty, incarceration, disability, care, and
love. By talking together and thinking together
students further their understanding of ideas in
weekly readings so that these ideas might ignite
fresh questions and experiments in the studio.
Readings include work by Édouard Glissant, Judith
Butler, Jane Bennett, Fred Moten, Karen Barad,
Saidiya Hartman, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.