This seminar rests on the premise that politics is more than institutions and that there are other essential political concepts besides power that provide more useful measures of opinions, the building blocks of politics. This course examines the relationship between literature and politics, as literature often reveals a society’s or an age’s hopes, aims and worries. It is through stories of human conditions and human dreams that we begin searching for the pieces of politics that we have lost to the universal political truths and principles that have taken their place.
The course will be divided into two general sections: Political Ideologies and Authorities, which will focus on a comparison of states and systems of rules and their influence on the condition of humanity; and Politics of Memory, Identity and Struggle which deals with the conceptions of political injustice, historical misrepresentation and identity. Within this context, literature, and the literary genre of film, is presented as a space for dialogue, and a medium for hidden denunciation and silent protest, as well as a vision of political community. As such, literature serves as another source of knowledge which sheds light on history and the human condition, and is often the first target of political hegemony and repression.
The course will review standard social science texts on the topics covered, and will explore the contributions of literature to the study of politics, and to the formation of a more thoughtful, critical citizenship.