Slavoj Zizek - Masterclass: Notes Towards a Definition of Communist Culture

The master class will analyse phenomena of modern thought and culture with the intention to discern elements of possible Communist culture. It will move at two levels: first, it will interpret some cultural phenomena (from today's architecture to classic literary works like Rousseau's La Nouvelle Heloise) as failures to imagine or enact a Communist culture; second, it will explore attempts at imagining how a Communist culture could look, from Wagner's Ring to Kafka's and Beckett's short stories and contemporary science fiction novels. 1. Architecture as Ideology: the Failure of Performance-Arts Venues to construct a Communal Space 2. Narrative as an Ideological Category: Literary References in Hegel's Phenomenology 3. The Failure of Nietzsche's Critique of the Hegelian Narrative 4. Wagner's Ring as a Communist narrative 5. Narrative Germs of Communism: from Kafka, Beckett, Sturgeon

LITERATURE:
Allen Speight, Hegel, Literature and the Problem of Agency (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001)
Slavoj Zizek and John Millbank, The Monstrosity of Christ (Cambridge: MIT Press 2009)
Richard Wagner: The Ring of the Nibelungs (libretto, available on line)
Franz Kafka: Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk (available online)
Samuel Beckett:  Not I (available online)
Theodor Sturgeon, Stranger Than Human (a classic sci-fi novel available in many editions).

Monday 15th June - Friday 19th June  2.30pm (Wednesday 17th @  2pm)   Room B34  Birkbeck Main Building

Registration essential:       Standard - £25      Birkbeck staff and all Students - £10