Mythologies of the Contemporary - ARL500150

• Title: Mythologies of the Contemporary
• Guaranteed by: Institute of Philosophy and Religious Studies (21-UFAR)
• Faculty: Faculty of Arts
• Actual: from 2021
• Semester: winter
• Points: 0
• E-Credits: 5
• Examination process: winter s.:
• Hours per week, examination: winter s.:0/2, Ex [HT]
• Capacity: unknown / unknown (20)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: not taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Additional information: https://dl1.cuni.cz/course/view.php?id=10616
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment
• Guarantor: Mgr. Milan Kroulík
• Class: A – Mezioborová nabídka VP: Filosofie, náboženství; Exchange - 08.1 Philosophy; Exchange - 14.7 Anthropology

Annotation

Last update: Mgr. Milan Kroulík (01.10.2020)

“In a strict sense, science is our myth.” Taking this quote by the science studies scholar Donna Haraway as a point of departure, this seminar is organized around knowledge produced around the edges of “our” world, meaning the one modern society takes as simply there. The topic then relates to the ontological turn in anthropology and STS (Science Technology Society), wherein ontology can be taken as, following the Brazilian anthropologist Mario Blaser, “the 'stories' we tell ourselves about what exists and how these things exist in relationship to each other.” Ontology, cosmology and myths then are related concepts that can be equally applied to any proposed society, especially the modern one that likes to present itself through the meta-myth of being without myth. Through selected texts we will engage a variety of seemingly for granted concepts, such as Nature, gender, linearity, genes or markets, in order to historically situate them and through pointing out their radical contingency opening up lines of flight toward possible futures. Whereas much research commonly takes the “other” worlds engaged, be they historical or contemporary, non-bourgeois European or small-scale, as something to be judged by our historically constituted standards, the aim here is to engage them as possible worlds that help our situated selves think about what our world is, isn't and could be.<br>

#decolonial

moodle:
https://dl1.cuni.cz/course/view.php?id=10616

We will be meeting here:
https://meet.jit.si/exploringpostworlds

INTRODUCTORY CLASS ON OCTOBER 1, 19:10.

Course completion requirements

Last update: Mgr. Milan Kroulík (18.09.2020)

Grading:

 

• Active Participation 60%

• Exam/Presentation 40%

 

Examination:

To finish the course, each student will have to research a topic of their choosing that can be related to the overall concept of the seminar. These will then be presented as if in an academic conference, including discussions after each presentation. Should a student so choose, it will be possible to create an audiovisual contribution, including a description of the aims of the piece, instead of a classic presentation. These will be screened as part of the mini-conference.

Literature

Last update: Mgr. Milan Kroulík (18.09.2020)

de la Cadena, Marisol. 2018. “Earth-beings - Andean indigenous religion, but not only,” in K. Omura et al., eds. The World Multiple: The Quotidian Politics of Knowing and Generating Entangled Worlds. London – New York: Routledge, 19–36.

Scott, James C. 2009. “Ethnogenesis: A Radical Constructionist Case,” in J. C. Scott. The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 238–282.

Tsing, Anna L. 2005. “Natural Universals and the Global Scale,” in A. L. Tsing. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton – Oxford: Princeton University Press, 88–112.

Jensen, Casper Bruun & Atsuro Morita. 2015. “Infrastructures as Ontological Experiments.” Engaging Technology, Science, Society 1: 81–87.

Muecke, Stephen. 2009. “Cultural Science? The ecological critique of modernity and the conceptual habitat of the humanities.” Cultural Studies 23.3: 404–416.

Oyĕwùmí, Oyèrónkẹ́. 1997. “The Translation of Cultures: Engendering Yoruba Language, Orature, and World-Sense,” in O. Oyĕwùmí. The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 157–180.

Morita, Atsuro. 2012. “Rethinking Technics and the Human: An Experimental Reading of Classic Texts on Technology.” 40–58.

Barad, Karen. 2011. “Nature's Queer Performativity.” Qui Parle: Critical Humanities and Social Sciences 19: 121–158.

Geraci, Robert M. 2016. “A tale of two futures: Techno-eschatology in the US and India.” Social Compass: 1–16.

Geraci, Robert M. 2006. “Spiritual robots: Religion and our scientific view of the natural world.” Theology and Science 76.1: 229–246.

Helmreich, Stefan. 2011. “Nature/Culture/Seawater.” American Anthropologist 113.1: 132–144.

Siegert, Bernard. 2015. “Medusas of the Western Pacific: The Cultural Techniques of Seafaring,” in B. Siegert. Cultural Techniques: Grids, Filters, Doors, and Other Articulations of the Real. New York: Fordham University Press, 68–81.

Wark, McKenzie. 2019. “A Time Machine Theory of History,” in M. Wark. Capital is Dead, Is This Something Worse? New York: Verso, 101–122.

Benjamin, Walter. [1940] 2003. “On the Concept of History.” in H. Eiland and M. W. Jennings, eds. Selected Writings, vol. 4. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 389–401.

Land, Nick. 1988. “Kant, Capital, and the Prohibition of Incest: A Polemical Introduction to the Configuration of Philosophy and Modernity.” Third Text 2: 83–94.

Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. 1994. “Brain Death and Organ Transplantation: Cultural Bases of Medical Technology.” Current Anthropology 35.3: 233–254.

McKinnon, Susan. 2012. “Mind and Culture,” in S. McKinnon. Neo-liberal Genetics: The Myths and Moral Tales of Evolutionary Psychology. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 14–42.

TallBear, Kim. 2003. “DNA, Blood, and Racializing the Tribe.” Wicazō Śa Review 18.1: 81–107.

Syllabus

Last update: Mgr. Milan Kroulík (18.09.2020)

This weekly seminar will require regular readings and preparation for class. In class exercises will focus on understanding the concepts and modes of thought in the readings and applying them in more general ways. Discussions will be, depending on the text, within the whole class or in smaller groups. 

The first lesson will be introductory. The exam will take the form of a small conference, where each student will present their research on a related topic.

In case of a lockdown, classes will take place online.