Module description
This course introduces students to a range of critical theories about science and culture, nature and performance, including the politics and biopolitics of the ‘organic’; ‘natural’ acting and the emotions; colonialism, psychiatry and racialized medical imaginaries; indigenous epistemologies and climate cultures; ethnography, scientific method, and culture wars; health/care; fragility; and form. We will look at questions of vulnerability, statistical reason, social medicine and the rise of public health, 24/7 temporalities, normality and normativity, gendered labour, and other questions that deeply shape the ways we live and act now. Readings will weave through the semester thematically; where possible, students will be encouraged to engage with live performance and other museum and art works going on in London concurrently.
Assessment details
1 x 4000 word essay
Educational aims & objectives
This module works deeply and rigorously with inter- and transdisciplinary methods to think about ways language, discourse, poetics, aesthetic form and politics mesh; students will be supported in formulating independent research questions, and gaining confidence in articulating key questions pertaining to critical studies of science, ‘nature’, and culture today. Students will also be encouraged to experiment with their writing – with essay form – if they wish.
Learning outcomes
Familiarity with a range of key texts, ideas and critical theories in the studies of science, medicine, nature, and performance; ability to formulate and to articulate nuanced arguments about performance, science, and health clearly and concisely. Engagement with critical literature in the fields of performance studies, and relevant critical science and cultural studies.
Teaching pattern
1x 2h seminar weekly
Suggested reading list
No set texts required. All texts will be available on KEATS. Students are strongly encouraged to obtain hard copies of readings where possible, to aid the reading and discussion process.
Indicative weekly reading from the first two weeks:
Week 1 Epistemological Unravelling: Of Vulnerability and Deep Time
- Boaventura de Sousa Santos, ‘Bodies, Knowledges, and Corazonar’, from The End of the Cognitive Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of the South
- Julietta Singh, ‘The Language of Mastery’ and ‘Cultivating Discomfort’, in Unthinking Mastery: Dehumanism and Decolonial Entanglements
- Emily Robinson Dance, ‘Seedlings of Time’ (dance video, 7 mins)
Week 2 Radical Pedagogy: Philosophy as Spiritual and Health Practice
- Seneca, ‘On Tranquillity of Mind’, from Essays and Letters
- Pierre Hadot, ‘Philosophical Discourse as Spiritual Exercise’, from The Present Alone is Our Happiness
- Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, ‘Pedagogy of Buddhism’, from Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity