GERM60992
Sex, Money, Power: Mapping Modernity with Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Arendt
15
Semester 2
Postgraduate Taught
Level 7
Sebastian Truskolaski
Unit coordinator
1
FHEQ level (Framework for Higher Education Qualifications) ' Undefined '
European Credit Transfer & Accumulation System Rating : 7.5
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(0,0,0);"><span class="TextRun SCXW22063328 BCX8 NormalTextRun" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:transparent;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;-webkit-user-drag:none;font-family:Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;font-size:12pt;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:none !important;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:19px;margin:0px;orphans:2;padding:0px;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;user-select:text;white-space:pre-wrap;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;" data-contrast="auto" xml:lang="EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">In an influential 1982 study, the critic Marshal Berman cites a formulation from the communist manifesto, whereby ‘to be modern is to be part of a universe in which … “all that is solid melts into air”’. According to Berman, the experience of modernity thus involves at least two steps: first, the dissolution of traditional certainties regarding everything from our sense of self to the organisation of our societies; and second, the countless, often contradictory efforts to regain a sense of orientation in this context. Perhaps not coincidentally, four thinkers who have significantly contributed to unsettling such time-honoured beliefs, while also inaugurating new ways of understanding the modern world, hail from the German-speaking lands: Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and Hannah Arendt. By introducing these author’s writings on political and libidinal economy – on art, culture, and identity – this unit asks: what do ‘Sex, Money’, and ‘Power’ mean to us today?</span><span class="EOP SCXW22063328 BCX8" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:transparent;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;-webkit-user-drag:none;font-family:Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;font-size:12pt;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:19px;margin:0px;orphans:2;padding:0px;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;user-select:text;white-space:pre-wrap;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;" data-ccp-props="{}"> </span></span></p>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(0,0,0);"><span class="TextRun SCXW22063328 BCX8 NormalTextRun" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:transparent;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;-webkit-user-drag:none;font-family:Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;font-size:12pt;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:none !important;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:19px;margin:0px;orphans:2;padding:0px;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;user-select:text;white-space:pre-wrap;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;" data-contrast="auto" xml:lang="EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">In an influential 1982 study, the critic Marshal Berman cites a formulation from the communist manifesto, whereby ‘to be modern is to be part of a universe in which … “all that is solid melts into air”’. According to Berman, the experience of modernity thus involves at least two steps: first, the dissolution of traditional certainties regarding everything from our sense of self to the organisation of our societies; and second, the countless, often contradictory efforts to regain a sense of orientation in this context. Perhaps not coincidentally, four thinkers who have significantly contributed to unsettling such time-honoured beliefs, while also inaugurating new ways of understanding the modern world, hail from the German-speaking lands: Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and Hannah Arendt. By introducing these author’s writings on political and libidinal economy – on art, culture, and identity – this unit asks: what do ‘Sex, Money’, and ‘Power’ mean to us today?</span><span class="EOP SCXW22063328 BCX8" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:transparent;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;-webkit-user-drag:none;font-family:Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;font-size:12pt;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:19px;margin:0px;orphans:2;padding:0px;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;user-select:text;white-space:pre-wrap;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;" data-ccp-props="{}"> </span></span></p>
<p> The unit aims:</p><ul><li>To develop knowledge and understanding of the concept of modernity and key expressions thereof in the fields of political and libidinal economy, as well as art and culture.</li><li>To develop key competencies in the critical analysis of key texts in modern intellectual history</li><li>To develop critical thinking and higher order conceptual reasoning and analytical skills</li><li>To develop advanced skills of written and verbal communication </li></ul>
0
Other
100%
<figure class="table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Task</td><td>Formative or Summative</td><td>Weighting within unit</td></tr><tr><td>In-class, group oral presentation </td><td>Formative</td><td> </td></tr><tr><td>Essay</td><td>Summative</td><td>100</td></tr></tbody></table></figure><p><strong>Resit Assessment- </strong>Essay</p>
<p> </p><figure class="table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Task</td><td>Formative or Summative</td><td>Feedback method</td></tr><tr><td>In-class, group oral presentation </td><td>Formative</td><td>Orally, in class </td></tr><tr><td>Essay</td><td>Summative</td><td>Written via Turnitin</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>
<p><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255);color:rgb(0,0,0);"><span class="TextRun SCXW963180 BCX8 NormalTextRun" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:transparent;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;-webkit-user-drag:none;font-family:Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;font-size:12pt;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:none !important;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:19px;margin:0px;orphans:2;padding:0px;text-align:justify;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;user-select:text;white-space:pre-wrap;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;" data-contrast="auto" xml:lang="EN-GB" lang="EN-GB">MA students on MA in MLC and other PGT units from across SALC</span><span class="EOP SCXW963180 BCX8" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:transparent;-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;-webkit-user-drag:none;font-family:Calibri, Calibri_EmbeddedFont, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;font-size:12pt;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:19px;margin:0px;orphans:2;padding:0px;text-align:justify;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;user-select:text;white-space:pre-wrap;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;" data-ccp-props="{"134233279":true,"201341983":0,"335551550":6,"335551620":6,"335559739":0,"335559740":240}"> </span></span></p>
Y
<ul><li>Berman, Marshal, All That is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity (London: Verso, 1982) </li><li>Marx, Karl, The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978)</li><li>Marx, Karl, Capital, Vol. 1, trans. Paul Reitter, eds. Paul North & Paul Reitter (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2024)</li><li>Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House, 1974)</li><li>Nietzsche, Friedrich, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House, 1995)</li><li>Freud, Sigmund, The Penguin Freud Reader, ed. Adam Philips (London: Penguin, 2006)</li><li>Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism (London: Penguin, 2006)</li><li>Arendt, Hannah, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (London: Penguin, 1922) </li></ul>
Lectures
11
Seminars
22
0
117