CSS214 | Sources of the Self

This course looks for diverse answers to this question about the philosophical, social, and aesthetic category – the self. A self emerges with the claim of a distinct interior (although there are debates about this) landscape, supposedly encased in a body and animated by a mind. Modern questions of individualism, freedoms, rights, agency stem from the philosophical foundations of the category – the self. The individual self is a discrete and unitary production of humanity that forms the bases of much of modern social and political thought. The collective noun for the self often poses a political and intellectual challenge to the concept of the self itself – because of its innate individuatedness and distinctiveness. Does the existence of groups and collectives automatically challenge the idea of a discrete self? Can we think our political and social futures outside of the self? What are alternative, non-Western definitions of this category? These and associated questions will be examined in the course. This 4-credit, 40-hour elective course will assemble discussions on texts from philosophy, social theory, art history, literary theory.