Rhetoric of the Modern 3

Subject guarantor:

Name of lecturer(s):

Learning outcomes of the course unit:

Pod titulem ?rétorika modernosti? chci postupně analyzovat žánry a figury hegemonických diskurzů, které se vynořily v dějinách modernosti jako řešení rozkolů, které přinesla. Z hegemonických žánrů a rétorických figur odvozují svou autoritu bratrstva a strany autorizovaných (modelových) interpretů historických světů. Jejich mocenské koalice kanonizují určité diskurzivní formace a režimy řeči, zajišťují pro ně ochranu diskurzivní policie a usilují o jejich expanzi. Z jejich různých historických konfigurací pak můžeme odvodit typologie národních kultur, například německá ?rétorika modernosti? je nesena nostalgií po pospolitosti, radikální kritikou ?technické civilizace a ekonomické racionality? ve jménu ?osudového, jedinečného, historického společenství?, francouzská je naopak nesena rétorikou úzkosti z provincie a důvěrou v racionalizující moc centra, zdroje smyslu dějin, britskou pak vyznačuje schopnost legitimizovat změnu podstaty poměrů při zachování formy atd. Jaké ?bratrstvo modelových interpretů? určuje českou národní kulturu? Současnou fázi globalizace vyznačuje masová identitární panika, ta vyvolává v každé evropské zemi ?diskurzivní obrat k identitě? - figury a žánry této rétoriky jsou například v českém veřejném prostoru velmi vlivné.

Mode of study:

Lectures and final course module.

Prerequisites and co-requisites:

On-going readings of recommended texts, documents and papers during the course.

Recommended optional programme components:

Course contents:

Analysis of individual examples of hegemonic discourses and their manifestations.

We attempt to analyse key figures of modern discourse. such as: The state is a machine which is handling religious wars, Rhetoric of subjectivity which is a histerical reaction to the end of geocentrism (science has driven man from the center of the cosmos to the periphery of the Milky Way but everything has to start over again from „Cogito ergo sum“, from human self-awareness, self-experience): Rhetoric of unseen hands which legitimize behaviour motivated by enjoyment, acquisition (self-interest): Allegory of societal contracts which take authority of human decision from a natural state and give part of their rights to the government, Metaphor of nature as a book written in a mathematical language, created by Galileo.

These metaphors have generated a new discourse hegemony, a new regime of words, new vocabulary, new canon and new definitions in the differences of reality-appearances, society-individual, center-periphery, which has become a source of legitimacy for various phases of the industrial modern. I wish to analyse systematically the canonic writings in rhetoric in which is constituted modern nostalgia after pospolity, the battle with „anonymity“ as the mai threat to modern society, fear from the rationalization (beaurocratization) as an iron cage in there is no escape, unavoidable ogligarchization of all collective events (Michels). Fear of the outcomes of revolts of the masses, secularization and maximalization of numbers. Also key figures of the 1960s and late moderism such as the tetrad of M. McLuhan and other figures of his revolutionary concept of the media, forms of pastoral power in the modern state (Foucault). The single dimensional man. (Marcuse), Fluid Modernity (Bauman), Empty society, in which the process of individualization has no limits. Cultural Narcism. The metaphor of the contemporary growth of pairs on ice which leads to the unending conflict of globalization (Offe) or the attempt of Habermas to derive rational ethics from implicit political and social conditions of effective communications.

Recommended or required reading:

The literature for the course will be determined during group work. Important for us are excerpts from the works of Bauman, Lipovetsky, Beck and my Society of Sickness (second edition) and excerpts from recent works of M. Petrusek group. An important part of the course will the interpretation of selected documentaries or films in a context of hegemonic discursive formations.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods:

Lectures begin on the 6th of October, 2011 and will continue with occasional short interruptions, throughout the semester with a final module summary according to agreement.

Assessment methods and criteria:

Course paper and colloquium according to experience from the course.

Course web page:

Note:

Further information:

No schedule has been prepared for this course

The subject is a part of the following study plans:

• Animovaná tvorba - bakalář (optional subject)
• Dokumentární tvorba - magistr (optional subject)
• Dokumentární tvorba - bakalář (optional subject)
• Animovaná tvorba - magistr (optional subject)
• Scenáristika a dramaturgie - bakalář (optional subject)
• Scenáristika a dramaturgie - magistr (optional subject)
• Režie - bakalář (optional subject)
• Režie - magistr (optional subject)
• Kamera - bakalář (optional subject)
• Kamera - magistr (optional subject)
• Produkce - bakalář (optional subject)
• Produkce - magistr (optional subject)
• Audiovizuální studia - bakalář (optional subject)
• Střihová skladba - bakalář (optional subject)
• Střihová skladba - magistr (optional subject)
• Zvuková tvorba - bakalář (optional subject)
• Zvuková tvorba - magistr (optional subject)
• Fotografie CZ - bakalář (optional subject)
• Fotografie CZ - magistr (optional subject)
• Audiovizuální studia - magistr (optional subject)
• Fotografie CZ: Restaurování fotografie (optional subject)