For this year's Grounds course I have chosen the theme of "revolution". We are not going to study how to do a revolution, but what a revolution means, what it can mean and what it might mean. Texts touching the idea of revolution discuss what society is, what power is and means, how societies change and can be changed. I want to combine both classic takes on revolution with new ones, and a variety of perspectives on how societies and power function and are upturned or subverted.
I have a set of texts in mind, and am still looking for some specific ones. And am always open to suggestions. Here's how the schedule looks like now:
3.10. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Manifesto of the Communist Party.
17.10. Walter Benjamin: Theses on the Concept of History
14.11. Franz Fanon: The Wretched of the Earth (Chapter I: On Violence)
28.11. (Guy Debord): Situationist Manifesto
9.1. Michel Foucault: The History of Sexuality I (Chapter The Deployment of Sexuality, especially 1. Object and 2. Method)
30.1. James C Scott: Everyday Forms of Resistance
13.2. (Looking for a text on the concept and point of view of the "multitude")
5.3. (Very much hoping the translation of the book by Veronica Gago on Feminist Revolution, foregrounding especially the case of Argentinian movement would be out by this date!)
2.4. Discussion on the whole course and your writings. Have to decide what form they would take - I think something in the way of a dialogue with one chosen text, or topic, could be meaningful.
So welcome on board and remember to read the text before a meeting. the point is to discuss the text and what you find there, not me to keep lecturing.
