English 190

Book List

Arendt, Hannah: The Human Condition ; Barthes, Roland: The Pleasure of the Text; Brecht, Bertolt: The Caucausian Chalk Circle; Debord, Guy: The Society of the Spectacle; Freire, Paolo: Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Description

This course will track the concept of participation across the 20th century, tracing its manifestation in key aesthetic, political, economic and technological forms. The first half of the course will investigate how, over the course of the 20th century, calls for greater participation in the decision-making structures of the workplace, and in political life, paralleled the new literary and art experiments that sought to overthrow the unidirectional relationship between writer and reader, performer and audience. The final half of the course will examine the contemporary legacy of these developments, from the “interactivity” of web 2.0 to the social movements, such as Occupy, that stress participatory democracy. We will close by considering some potent critiques of participation. 

Please read the paragraph on page 2 of the instructions area of this Announcement of Classes for more details about enrolling in or wait-listing for this course.