Current Continental Philosophy examines the ideas of influential European philosophers in the second half of the 20th Century. Movements studied include Neo-Marxist critical theory, philosophical hermeneutics, psychoanalytic structuralism, French feminism, deconstruction, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and postmodernism.

Reading assignments are based on our textbook: Contemporary Continental Thought, ed. Stephen H. Daniel (Prentice-Hall, 2005). The book includes thirty-six readings from twenty key thinkers.

Topics and persons to be studied:

• Introduction
• Current Continental Philosophy: The Modern, The Postmodern
• Thematic Background Figures: Marx, Freud, Nietzsche
• Critical Theory
• Marxism and the Frankfurt School
• Georg Lukács
• Max Horkheimer
• Walter Benjamin
• Theodor Adorno
• Hans-Georg Gadamer
• Jürgen Habermas
• Louis Althusser
• Psychoanalytic Structuralism, Feminism, Deconstruction
• Structuralism
• Ferdinand de Saussure
• Jacques Lacan
• Feminism and Psychoanalysis
• Luce Irigaray
• Julia Kristeva
• Deconstruction
• Emmanuel Levinas
• Jacques Derrida
• Hélène Cixous
• Poststructuralism, Postcolonialism, Postmodernism
• Poststructuralism
• Gilles Deleuze
• Michel Foucault
• Postcolonialism
• Gayatri Spivak
• Homi Bhabha
• Postmodernism
• Jean-François Lyotard
• Jean Baudrillard

Grades/Tests

The semester grade is based equally on three essay-format tests (including the final exam). In place of any one of the tests, you can write a 10-page research paper. You can write papers for up to two tests; you must take at least one test. (For how the papers are to be written, see below.) You can add extra points to a test score by submitting a two-page summary of daily readings: A=2 1/2 pts, B=1 1/2 pts, C=1/2 pt. (For more on how to write the summaries, see below.) There are 24 days when we have readings, so you have a chance to add up to 60 points to one of your test scores. There is no grade for attendance, but if you miss a class for any reason, you must make up for that absence by submitting a two-page summary of that day's reading. Failure to turn in an acceptable (A or B) summary will result in a loss of 5 points on one of your test scores. You can turn in make-up summaries at any time during the semester, but extra point summaries must be turned in at the beginning of the class in which the readings are discussed. If you miss a test, contact me before the next class meeting to take a make-up exam.

Guidelines for the Summaries

Summaries should address the question: What are the main points discussed in the assigned readings? Do not bother with biographical or historical remarks about the philosopher: focus on the arguments he or she presents. To understand the readings better, consult secondary sources such as the following:

• The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Routledge, 1998)
• Richard Kearney, Twentieth Century Continental Philosophy (Routledge, 1994)
• David West, Introduction to Continental Philosophy (Polity, 1996)
• John Lechte, Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers (Routledge, 1994)
• Simon Critchley & William Schroeder, eds., A Companion to Continental Philosophy (Blackwell, 1998)
• John Sturrock, ed., Structuralism and Since (Oxford University Press, 1979)

• www.augustana.ab.ca/~janzb/continental.htm
• www.baylor.edu/~Scott_Moore/Continental.html
• carbon.ucdenver.edu/~mryder/itc/postmodern.html

Collections of an author's writings (e.g., A Kristeva Reader) provide introductions to selected works, and books devoted entirely to a thinker often describe in detail points in the essays we study. In your summaries make sure to indicate exactly where your secondary sources address those issues. Do this by parenthetically citing your source and then give full bibliographic data at the end of your summary. For example, if you are summarizing Derrida's "Afterword" and you want to clarify the meaning of differance by referring to David West's discussion of Derrida in the book mentioned above, you could simply write: "Differance is the act of alluding to something while at the same time attempting to erase the very gesture by which the allusion is made (West, 136)" and then give the full citation at the end of your summary. You thus make use of West without having to say "as David West says..." You only have two pages to summarize the points of the essay(s) we are studying that day, so use your words economically. Likewise, use paper wisely: don't turn in a page with one or two lines at the top; squeeze them in on the previous pages by changing the margins to accommodate them.

Remember: summaries should be limited solely to the points raised in the readings. They are not intended as opportunities for you to say how you agree or disagree with the author. Avoid statements like "For centuries philosophers ..." Finally, make sure you cover all assigned pages, especially if the assignment covers more than one reading or more than one philosopher.

Guidelines for Optional Papers

No one is required to write a research paper for this course. If you choose to substitute a 10-page paper for a test--which you can do for up to two of the three tests--please talk to me about your choice of topic and feel free to submit early drafts so that I can comment on them and provide feedback for how to improve them. The paper may deal with a specific topic developed by one thinker or be a comparison of two thinkers on a topic. The selection of a paper topic will emerge after you have read through a good bit of secondary material. Only after you have seen how scholars treat major points of contention can you develop a feel for how to resolve the issues in your paper.

The paper should have the following structure:

• the introduction should consist of three paragraphs, indicating (1) the topic of the paper and the problems it plans to address, (2) the ways in which specific commentators have differed on how to interpret the topic, and (3) the order of treatment in which the main points of your paper will be discussed.
• each section of the paper should have a title and be at least 3-4 pages long.
• a final brief (less than a page) section, entitled "Concluding Remarks," should indicate how the points you raise clarify the issue, especially regarding differences in how commentators interpret the thinker (or thinkers).
• footnote citations should adopt the following format:
• (book) John Lechte, Julia Kristeva (New York: Routledge, 1990), pp. 32-35.
• (article) Daniel Stempel, "Blake, Foucault, and the Classical Episteme," PMLA 96 (1981), 389.
• (book of essays) Michel Foucault, "Nietzsche, Freud, Marx," in Transforming the Hermeneutic Context, ed. Gayle L. Ormiston and Alan D. Schrift (Albany: SUNY Press, 1983), pp. 66-67.
• --For subsequent entries, use abbreviations: e.g., Lechte, Kristeva, p. 42; or Stempel, "Blake," 390.

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