Zurück
| Semester | Frühjahrsemester 2018 |
| Angebotsmuster | einmalig |
| Dozierende | Till Förster (till.foerster@unibas.ch, BeurteilerIn) |
| Inhalt | Since decades, outside observers as well as African politicians and intellectuals speak of “crises” that rock the continent and its countries. It seems as if there had never been a time when Africa was not going through a crisis. The excessive use of the word has made it an empty signifier that often serves as an excuse for those who hold power. Furthermore, crisis is a term that often has no correspondence in non-European languages. Rural and urban folks conceived the changing tide of events as better or worse, but not in terms of crises and heights as capitalist market economies do. However, the term crisis had become so prevalent that in most African countries, it is today used in all societal milieus. As a sort of nodal point of political articulation, it serves as a reference that political actors use with many different connotations and for different purposes. As a discursive nodal point, crisis also provokes and channels critique. It frames the ways of how critique is articulated, and it also conceals other ways claim-making. Critique therefore often adopts other, hidden ways of articulation. For instance, when actors do no longer engage in discursive interactions but prefer to move out of that sphere in order to practice other, alternative ways of living, these new ways of living could be interpreted as a critique of the ordinary everyday. This seminar explores this tension from two cross-cutting perspectives: It asks how the concept of crisis stirs political articulations and how the actors eventually try to develop alternative ways of living that implicitly or explicitly question the dominance of existing discursive formations. Basically, the seminar raises three general questions: • What is political articulation? • What do different actors articulate their interests and claims? • Is critique articulated by other, non-discursive means? The interplay of theory and method will also guide this seminar. It examines the trope of crisis and political articulation in all societies, from the micro level of face-to-face encounters to the macro level of staging entire states and nations. Examples will mainly come from Africa, but whenever there is an interest in other parts of the world, there will be opportunities to study these as well. |
| Literatur | Basic Reading, compulsory for all students: Honneth, Axel. 1992. Kampf um Anerkennung. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp (second, enlarged edition 2003; engl. Translation: The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1995). |
| Unterrichtssprache | Englisch |
| Einsatz digitaler Medien | kein spezifischer Einsatz |
| Intervall | Wochentag | Zeit | Raum |
|---|
Keine Einzeltermine verfügbar, bitte informieren Sie sich direkt bei den Dozierenden.
| Module |
Modul Fields: Governance and Politics (Master Studiengang: African Studies) Modul Fields: Knowledge Production and Transfer (Master Studiengang: African Studies) Modul Fields: Media and Imagination (Master Studiengang: African Studies) Modul Interdisciplinary and Applied African Studies (Master Studiengang: African Studies) Modul Research Skills in Social and Cultural Anthropology (Master Studienfach: Anthropology) Modul Social Anthropology (Master Studiengang: African Studies (Studienbeginn vor 01.08.2013)) Modul Theorie der Ethnologie (Master Studienfach: Ethnologie (Studienbeginn vor 01.08.2013)) |
| Leistungsüberprüfung | Lehrveranst.-begleitend |
| Hinweise zur Leistungsüberprüfung | The first part of the seminar consists of short presentations of 25 to 30 min. each (see program below). They are suitable for advanced MA students. The presenters should prepare a slide with the main points of their presentation. The second part of the seminar is related to deeper analyses of (non)articulatory critiques and is suitable for PhD students and MA students if they have a deeper interest in the themes and al-ready acquired some knowledge about them. Texts for this part of the seminar will be accessible on the seminar’s workspace on Adam, the online resources system of the university. The students are expected to start with the excerpts accessible on Adam, but will need to read entire books if necessary, and they are also expected to search themselves for further publications in the field. The presentations may take 40 to 45 minutes and should be accompanied by a two or three-page hand-out, which should also contain basic statements on the respective theme. The hand-outs for this part of the seminar should be uploaded on Adam in the folder “handouts” one week before the presentation. All students who want to write a seminar paper should do a presentation of about 45 to 60min., followed by a discussion of 30 to 45min. It is expected that the presenters writing a seminar paper will complement their reading of relevant literature after the presentation, based on the discussions in class. Papers should be ca 8000 words long (approx. 20 to 25 pages, 12pt, 1.5 line spacing). Registration for papers is open until March 31, 2018. They are due on June 4 for those who will need the credits this semester. All others may submit their papers until the beginning of the autumn term 2018, i.e. by September 15, 2018. All papers should be submitted as word- or pdf-files via e-mail to till.foerster@unibas.ch. |
| An-/Abmeldung zur Leistungsüberprüfung | Anmelden: Belegen; Abmelden: nicht erforderlich |
| Wiederholungsprüfung | keine Wiederholungsprüfung |
| Skala | Pass / Fail |
| Wiederholtes Belegen | nicht wiederholbar |
| Zuständige Fakultät | Philosophisch-Historische Fakultät, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Anbietende Organisationseinheit | Departement Gesellschaftswissenschaften |