COURSE SYLLABUS. The Frankfurt School, Film, and Popular Culture WJH 320 Spring Thursday 4-6. WJH 401 Off. Hrs.

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1 COURSE SYLLABUS Anthropology 2688 Steven C. Caton The Frankfurt School, Film, and Popular Culture WJH 320 Spring Thursday 4-6. WJH 401 Off. Hrs. W Course Description The theoretical focus of this course is the critical theory of the so-called Frankfurt School, a group of Weimar intellectuals ( ) whose work influenced the New Left in the sixties and continues to influence social theory today. Among the figures we will examine in depth, who were at one time or another affiliated with the school, are: Max Horkheimer, the long-term director of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt (from which the name Frankfurt School was derived), Theodor Adorno, one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, the celebrated literary critic Walter Benjamin, and the undeservedly neglected film critic and theorist, Siegfried Kracauer. (The psychoanalyst Eric Fromm and the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, among many others, contributed importantly, but there is not enough time to include them in our overview.) Contemporaries who interacted with the Frankfurt School or were important as part of the intellectual debates of the time will also be included (Freud, Arendt, Weber, and Schmitt), as are also current theorists who have been influenced by the Frankfurt School (Foucault, Agamben). The empirical basis of the course will be an examination of Abu Ghraib, the Iraqi prison in which prisoner abuse took place in 2003 and revelations about which stunned the world. Unfortunately, it was only one, if also the most sensational, example of abuses committed by invasion and occupation forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Abu Ghraib was also not unique because it was symptomatic of larger issues characteristic of our world: the nature of modern wars; how photography, film and other digital media operate in such contexts; understanding the global security apparatus, the nature of sovereignty in the twenty-first century, and the connection of legal systems to problems of security, surveillance and sovereignty; questions of ethics and responsibility on a collective and not just individual level; and the ways in which art works ranging from photography to theatre and film represent war crimes and other abuses and generate (or not) discussion about them in the public sphere. The main questions the course asks are: to what extent can the theories of the Frankfurt School lead to a multi-faceted understanding of Abu Ghraib? And what can one learn from such an analysis that might lead to other and presumably better outcomes than Abu Ghraib? The course website contains an archive of basic source materials relevant to an analysis of this case. Requirements This is a seminar and regular attendance is mandatory. Only rarely will I lecture the burden of the discussion falls upon the individual members of the class. Therefore, I ask that every student, singly or in pairs, lead the discussion on the weekly readings in 1

2 such a way as to raise central questions that will help the rest of us get started in the conversation. It is likely that each student will have to lead such weekly discussions more than once. This part of the course is worth about 50% of the grade. In addition to your weekly seminar performance, you are required to one term paper (between pp. in length). This will tie together the particularities of Abu Ghraib with some analysis in the perspective of the Frankfurt School. The term paper is worth 50% of the grade. Required Readings Texts at the Coop (and on reserve at Tozzer) Adorno, Theodor. Negative Dialectics Agamben, G. Homo Saccer.. State of exception. Arendt, H. Responsibility and Judgment.. Eichmann in Jerusalem. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population. Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents. Gourevitch and Morris, Standard Operating Procedure. Horkheimer, Max. Eclipse of Reason Kracauer, The Salaried Masses. Schmitt, C. Political Theology Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others Recommended Texts (not at the Coop but on reserve at Tozzer): Barthes, Camera Lucida Buck-Morss, The origin of negative dialectics: Theodor Adorno, Walter Banjamin, and the Frankfurt Institute Held, Introduction to Critical Theory Martin, The dialectical imagination: a history of the Frankfurt School and the Institute for Social Research, Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School Course reader (available on the course web site) Schedule Week 1 Introduction to Course: The Problematic of the Course; Historical Background of the Frankfurt School 1 1 There are by now several very good intellectual histories of both the Weimar Republic and the Frankfurt School. Among the former, the most accessible and still indispensable work is Peter Gay s Weimar Culture though you might also consult Hans Mommsen s From Weimar to 2

3 1/31 Reading: Adorno, Education after Auschwitz ; Giroux, What Might Education Mean After Abu Ghraib? Recommended Reading: Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination. Read the book carefully, though you can skip Ch. 4 which is not particularly relevant to this course; David Held, Introduction to Critical Theory, Ch. 1 and 2 PART ONE THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL AND INTERLOCUTORS Week 2 On Violence 2/7 Required Reading: Benjamin, W. Critique of Violence. Arendt, H. On Violence (1970) Agamben, Homo Saccer Start looking at the Abu Ghraib archive and try to relate the general ideas from the readings to a preliminary analysis of the materials. Week 3 Law, State, and Exception 2/14 Required Reading: Benjamin, W. Theses on the Philosophy of History. Schmitt, C. Political Theology. Agamben, G. State of Exception. Continue looking at the Abu Ghraib archive and try to relate the general ideas from the readings to a preliminary analysis of the materials. Week 4 Horkheimer s Critical Reason 2/21 More so than Adorno or Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, perhaps the clearest but no less subtle of the thinkers we examine in the Frankfurt School, was committed to the idea of social science research. The issue for him was what form it should take. It was certainly dialectical and material in ways that all members of the Frankfurst School were developing in one way or another. Along with Adorno, he never abandoned his belief in reason or rationality as necessary for such research, even though he also believed that such rationality was historically conditioned (and in the contemporary Auschwitz and in a very different vein, Wolfgang Schivelbusch s The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning and Recovery. Among the latter, the most comprehensive to date is Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, which builds on Jay s work rather than displacing it and is especially interesting on developments after

4 period in which he lived to be also in eclipse ). Of all the theorists of the Frankfurt School, he was most explicit on what he meant by critical theory, a statement that has been highly important ever since. Required Reading: Horkheimer, Traditional and Critical Theory Horkheimer, Max. Postscript, Critical Theory Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason Week 5 On Film, Photography, and Mass Culture 2/28 The statements by various members of the Frankfurt School on popular culture were hardly consistent and remain highly controversial to this day. Horkheimer and Adorno were scathing critics of what they referred to as the culture indsutry ; Adorno wrote an elitist critique of jazz that borders on racism; and even Kracauer more subtle in his studies of popular culture than either Horkheimer and Adorno never could quite see its utopean or possible revolutionary character. Benjamin was perhaps alone in this regard, particularly in his later work on the arcades project. Required Reading: Kracaeur, Photography. Mass Ornament, pp Kracauer, The Salaried Masses. Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Benjamin, A Small History of Photography Horkheimer & Adorno, The Culture Industry Recommended Reading: Sontag, In Plato s Cave. On Photography, pp Barthes, R. Camera Lucida. Week 6 Negative Dialectics 3/7 The concept of negative dialectics may well be a central one of this course. Because it is so challenging, two weeks will be devoted to it. Adorno and Benjamin went furthest to develop the idea, though, as Buck-Morss argues in her superb study, not always in the same direction. Required Reading: Adorno, Negative Dialectics Recommended: Reading: Buck-Morss, The Origin of Negative Dialectics Week 7 Negative Dialectics, cont d. 3/14 Required Reading: Adorno, Negative Dialectics 4

5 Recommended: Reading: Buck-Morss, The Origin of Negative Dialectics 3/16-24 SPRING BREAK PART TWO ABU GHRAIB The second half of the course will circle back on the Frankfurt School by examining some of the writers, contemporary to the school and others closer to us in time, who were/are in conversation with it. How has this conversation led to inevitable changes that must be entertained in the School s ideas? The other goal in this half of the course is to delve more deeply into the way people have attempted to make sense of Abu Ghraib, and that may also have a bearing on our continuing investigation of Frankfurt School theory. Week 8 Abu Ghraib, Counter-Insurgency, and the Security Apparatus 3/28 Required Reading: Foucault, M. Security, Territory, Population. Caton and Zacka, Abu Ghraib, the security apparatus, and the performativity of power Week 9 On Images of Prisoner Abuse from Abu Ghraib 4/4 Required Reading: Caton, S. Ceotzee, Agamben, and the Passion of Abu Ghraib AA (2006) Sontag, S. Regarding the Pain of Others. Sontag, S. Regarding the Torture of Others New York Times, May 23, Buruma, Ian. Ghosts New York Review of Books (2008) Butler, J. Torture and the ethics of photography Morris, E. Abu Ghraib Essays (Photographs Reveal and Conceal) Film Showing (Outside of Class, TBA): S.O.P., a film by Errol Morris Week 10 On Evil, Part I 4/11 Required Reading: Gourevitch and Morris, Standard Operating Procedure. Arendt, H. Eichmann in Jerusalem (excerpts) Darley, J.M. Social Organization and the Production of Evil Week 11 On Evil, Part II 4/18 Required Reading: Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents Badiou, A. The Problem of Evil Sahlins, M. The Destruction of Conscience in Vietnam. Week 12 What Can Be Done? 5

6 4/25 Required Reading: Adorno, The Meaning of Working Through the Past Arendt, Responsibility and Judgment. Caton, S. Abu Ghraib and the Problem of Evil. 6