Intellectuals and Power: Reading Through Foucault, Lenin, and Gramsci

Semester and Year	SP 2013
Course Number	IDSEM-UG1360
Section	001
Instructor	René Francisco Poitevin
Days	Mon
Time	6:20 PM - 9:00 PM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement	SOC

Description

This course uses Lenin, Gramsci, and Foucault to pursue two questions: first, how does power operate in society? Second, what is the role of intellectuals in relation to power and politics? On the one hand, we ask: what is power? (Is it located in the state? corporations? media? in discourse? In what ways is power a problem and in what ways a resource?) On the other hand, we ask: what is “the intellectual?” What sort of social category and institution is thereby denoted? What do intellectuals claim to know and what is the political impact of their authority? Our goal is to explore how intellectuals give us a language to “see” power, but also how they have been implicated in the very forms of power they teach us to analyze. Readings include texts by Lenin, Gramsci, and Foucault, among others.

Course Type

Interdisciplinary Seminars (IDSEM-UG)