THE READING GROUP

Welcome to the Resource Page for The Reading Group. All of the readings will be available from this page as PDF downloads, and these will be copied across to the SPASA Blackboard sites to ensure they are freely available to Reading Group participants. Feel free to either make comments (see the main menu above) or email the Critical Practice Team directly. 


Code of Practice

Freedom of Opinion / Freedom of Expression / Intellectual Debate / The Pleasure of Ideas


CALL FOR PAPERS

The Reading Group will be publishing a journal at the end of the academic year. All Reading Group participants (past and present) are invited to submit material for publication. Attached below is the Call for Papers which outlines the process, suggests topics for consideration, and provides a timeline for submission. We look forward to your work and intellectual activity.

the_reading_group_journal.pdf
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SEMESTER ONE READINGS


Reading One: Tuesday 10th March

Edward Said: Orientalism [excerpt]

From Easthope, A, & McGowan K (Eds.). (1997). A Critical and Cultural Theory Reader. Buckingham: Open University Press. pp.59 - 65.

For more information on Edward Said in general, and Orientalism in particular:

Wikipedia
Amardeep Singh: An Introduction to Said
Lycos Retriever: Said's Orientalism
Salon.Com: How Edward Said took Intellectuals for a Ride



Welcome to our first reading (and meeting) of the semester. At this stage, we will meet in the tutorial room in Building 12. As always, meetings begin at 5.15(ish) and continue through to 7. All are welcome.


orientalism.pdf
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Reading Two: Tuesday 17th March

Julia Kristeva: Approaching Abjection

From her book The Powers of Horror (1982). New York: Columbia University Press. pp.1 - 31.

For more information on Julia Kristeva and Abjection:

Wikipedia Here and Here
Purdue University's Theory Module on Kristeva - focusing on Psychosexual Development and the Abject
Samantha Petony's Essay on the Abject in the works of Angela Carter and Keri Hulme
Patricia MacCormack's eBook: Pleasure, Perversion and Death: Three Lines of Flight for the Viewing Body



Our second reading is more adventurous, to be sure, but just as fun and rewarding as the Edward Said reading turned out to be. This week we'll be meeting in the Building 12 seminar / meeting room (room 2047), starting at 5.15pm and continuing through to 7. All, of course, are welcome.


the_powers_of_horror_pt1.pdf
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the_powers_of_horror_pt2.pdf
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Reading Three: Tuesday 24th March

George Bataille: 'Sacrifice, the Festival and the Principles of the Sacred World' and 'Eroticism, Work and the 'Little Death''.

'Sacrifice, the Festival and the Principles of the Sacred World' is from Bataille's Theory of Religion (1992: Orig. pub.1948) (tr. Robert Hurley) Zone Books: New York. pp.43-61.

'Eroticism, Work and the 'Little Death'' is from Bataille's Tears of Eros (1989: Orig.pub 1961) (tr. Peter Conner) City Lights Books: San Francisco. pp38 - 53.

Many of Bataille's supplementary readings are stored here, at the George Bataille Electronic Library. Of course, one can also check out a truncated biography at Wikipedia, as well as information on the Potlatch, the Solar Anus and the Accursed Share.



sacrifice_the_festival_and_priciples_of_the_sacred_world.pdf
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eroticism_work_and_the_little_death.pdf
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Reading Four: Tuesday 31st March

Judith Butler: 'Subjects of Sex / Gender / Desire'

Originally published in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1994) New York: Routledge. Here reproduced in The Cultural Studies Reader (2nd ed.) (Ed. Simon During) (2001) New York: Routledge. pp.340-353.

Aside from the ubiquitous Wikipedia biography and entry concerning her book Gender Trouble, excellent resources concerning Judith Butler and Gender / Queer theory are available at Theory.org.uk.


judith_butler.pdf
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Reading Five: Tuesday 7th April

Sigmund Freud: 'Three Contributions to the Theory of Sexuality'

There are many places to find more information about Freud and his Theories of Sexuality. One can always start at the Wikipedia Biography and follow the links on to the entries regarding the Oedipal Complex. Other useful resources include The Freud Museum in London, glossaries of Freudian terms here and here, a dictionary of psychoanalytic terms, and a link to Freud's Couch.

Many of Freud's works are available online as e-texts, including the classic The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud's 1910 article The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis and the essential The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.


three_contributions.pdf
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Because of the size of the above file, I've extracted three excerpts from the complete volume. These are (1)  'The Sexual Aberrations'; (2) 'Deviation in Relation to Sexual Aim'; (3) 'The Sexual Aim of Infantile Sexuality'.

the_sexual_aberrations.pdf
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deviation_in_relation_to_the_sexual_aim.pdf
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the_sexual_aim_of_the_infantile_sexuality.pdf
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Reading Six: Tuesday 5th May

Guy Debord: 'Society of the Spectacle' [excerpt]

In many ways, Debord and the Situationists were made for the Internet, an invention I'm sure they'd decry even as they would exploit it (much as they responded to contemporary capitalism). As a consequence, there are enormous numbers of resources concerning Situationism, Debord's Society of the Spectacle, and other post-Situ work, writing and theory


society_of_the_spectacle_excerpt.pdf
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Reading Seven: Tuesday 12 May

Karl Marx: Selected Writings.

The Internet is full of material explaining, exploring, evangelising and excoriating Karl Marx. Of course, here is as good a place as any to begin a little background research. Project Gutenberg have an impressive selection of Marx's writings for download and you must, if trolling the ether, stop by the Marx and Engels Internet Archive, which is part of the Marxists' Internet Archive.


alienated_labour.pdf
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communism_as_the_end_of_history.pdf
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preface__german_ideology.pdf
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Reading Eight: Tuesday 19 May

Slavoj Zizek: 'Welcome to the Desert of the Real (reflections on 11 September 2001)'

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Zizek, like Debord before him, is a theorist perfectly suited to the Internet. Consequently there is a wealth of material about him, by him, and attacking him. The European Graduate School have a large number of video clips and transcribed discussions available, and Zizek is, of course, all over YouTube. The fan-compiled Zizek Site maintains a comprehensive bibliography of material available online. It's a great resource to begin with.

desert_of_the_real.pdf
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Reading Nine: Tuesday 26 May

Roland Barthes: A Lover's Discourse: Fragments [excerpted]

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Roland Barthes is one of those thinkers whose work is astounding for both its breadth and its style; a consummate man of letters, Barthes is able, often within a single paragraph, to more from staggeringly intense theorising to achingly beautiful prose, and back again. A Lover's Discourse is both a personal work (insofar as it includes moments of Barthes falling into, and out of, love) and a cunning piece of balloon-popping. All those things we do in our most private moments, and which we think we own as original demonstrations of our private selves - here Barthes codifies them and reveal them to be the hoary old cliches we always feared. For more about Barthes, start with the ubiquitious biography, checking out also the entire text of Incidents. The bulk of Barthes Elements of Semiology is available here and I advise you all, artists in training, to check out his thinking surrounding The Death of the Author.

a_lovers_discourse_pt1.pdf
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a_lovers_discourse_pt2.pdf
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a_lovers_discourse_pt3.pdf
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Reading Ten: Tuesday 2 June

Nan Ellin: 'Shelter from the Storm or Form Follows Fear and Vice Versa'

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Ellin's article comes from the volume Architecture of Fear (an extensive multi-chapter preview is available through GoogleBooks) and is an excellent introduction to the ways in which Modernism and Post-Modernism have played out across urban space and, necessarily, across the bodies of those who inhabit and traverse these urban spaces. Ellin is particularly useful to read for the way she links cultural production to both hegemonic conditions and prevailing social discourses concerning gender, ethnicity and, necessarily, power.

shelter_from_the_storm_pt1.pdf
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shelter_from_the_storm_pt2.pdf
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Reading Eleven: Tuesday 9 June

Francis Fukuyama: The End of History and the Last Man [excerpts]

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Much has been written about Fukuyama's text - and it's useful to spend a little time sorting through the various responses to his provocative general thesis. Fukuyama's own response to his critics makes for equally fascinating reading. It's worth noting, also, that Fukuyama increasingly distanced himself from the Bush administration - as explained in an interview here - and further elaborated here.

the_end_of_history.pdf
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Reading Twelve: Tuesday 16 June

Richard Sennett: The Craftsman [excerpts]

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Richard Sennett's The Craftsman has generated enormous interest amongst the critical community and whilst there a few theoretical responses to his work yet, there are large numbers of very thoughtful book reviews that offer varying perspectives and interpretations.

the_craftsman_prologue.pdf
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the_craftsman_troubled_craftsman_pt1.pdf
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the_craftsman_troubled_craftsman_pt2.pdf
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Reading Thirteen: Tuesday 23 June

Roger Horrocks: 'A Short History of 'the New Zealand Intellectual''.

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Roger Horrocks is, without a doubt, one of the leading figures in the teaching of film in this country and is almost single-handedly responsible for the development of the study of film at both a secondary and tertiary level. His piece, 'A Short History of 'the New Zealand Intellectual'' provides an ascerbic review of the ways in which intellectualism is promoted, restrained or denied by the conditions of this country's specific post-settler content.

short_history_pt1.pdf
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short_history_pt2.pdf
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Reading Fourteen: Tuesday 21 July

Critical Art Ensemble: 'The Coming of Age of the Flesh Machine'

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As their website tells us, The Critical Art Ensemble is an anonymous collective of five artists from various specialisations "... dedicated to exploring the intersections between art, technology, radical politics and critical theory". This essay, reproduced in Reading Digital Culture (ed. David Trend) comes from their larger (anti-copyrighted) publication Flesh Machine, the entire text of which can be accessed here.

the_coming_of_age_of_the_flesh_machine.pdf
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Reading Fifteen: Tuesday 28 July

Peter Singer: 'Why Act Morally' from Practical Ethics (2nd Ed.) [1993]

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Peter Singer's career is long and varied, but always with the same focus on the issues he confronts in the excerpted chapter: why do we, or should we, act morally? You can access him directly here and read more of his work here. If you feel as though you'd like a more general introduction to this history of (and the study of) ethics and ethical thinking, The Galilean Library has an excellent Introduction to Philosophy series, including a great overview of these issues.

pratical_ethics_-__excerpt.pdf
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Reading Sixteen: Tuesday 4 August

Elisabeth Grosz: 'Animal Sex: Libido as Desire and Death' from Space, Time and Perversion.

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Elisabeth Grosz is something of an enigma in critical theory; a queer theorist who is interested in architecture; a multi-disciplinarian who moves readily between discussions of biology, psychoanalysis, space and corporeality (although, aren't these things linked anyway, and why shouldn't she?). As has been better said elsewhere, "Exploring the fields of architecture, philosophy and, in a controversial way, queer theory, Grosz shows how these fields have conceptually stripped our bodies their specificity, their corporeality and their production as bodies and how the functioning of bodies transforms understanding of space and time, knowledge and desire".

animal_sex_-_libido_as_desire_and_death.pdf
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Reading Seventeen: Tuesday 11 August

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari: 'The Desiring Machines' from Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972).

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How to describe the intellectual powerhouse that was Deleuze and Guattari? Aside from the enormous terrain they explore and define in their collaborations, one should also consider their solo work with Deleuze as the philosopher and Guattari as the (anti-) psychoanalyst. There is an enormous amount of D+G material on the web, including some excellent resource meta-sites and other teaching outlines.

deleuze_and_guattari_the_desiring_machines.pdf
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Reading Eighteen: Tuesday 18 August

David Foster Wallace: 'Consider the Lobster'

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David Foster Wallace was one of the most important contemporary novelists of our times, developing a reputation for sprawling post-modern fiction and equally excellent, biting reportage. This piece was originally published as an August 2004 feature on the Maine Lobster Festival for Gourmet magazine. Wallace passed away in September of 2008, leaving a substantial body of work whose importance, I believe, is still to be fully realised. 

consider_the_lobster.pdf
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Reading Nineteen: Tuesday 25 August

Martin Lefebvre: 'Conspicuous Consumption: The Figure of the Serial Killer as Cannibal in the Age of Capitalism'

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Originally published in Theory, Culture, Society. 2005:22.

Martin Lefebvre teaches at Concordia’s Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema in Canada. His departmental bio notes that:
  • Dr. Lefebvre’s research focuses primarily on semiotics, the study of meaning in terms of representation and interpretation by way of signs and sign processes. In particular, his research seeks to define an approach to film and visual representation inspired by the pragmatic ‘semeiotic’ philosophy of Charles S. Peirce.
Contact him here.

conspicuous_consumption-_the_figure_of_the_serial_killer.pdf
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Reading Twenty: Tuesday 1 September

Pierre Fédida: 'The Relic and the Work of Mourning' and Tim Edensor: 'Waste Matter: The Debris of Industrial Ruins and the Disordering of the Material World'

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Pierre Fédida:‘The Relic and the Work of Mourning’. Originally published in the Journal of Visual Culture (2003; 2).

Tim Edensor: 'Waste Matter: The Debris of Industrial Ruins and the Disordering of the Material World'. Originally published in the Journal of Material Culture (2005;10).

_the_relic_and_the_work_of_mourning_.pdf
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waste_matter_-_the_debris_of_industrial_ruins.pdf
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Reading Twenty One: Tuesday 8 September

Sigmund Freud: 'The Means of Representation in Dreams' from The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)

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Freud is a difficult man to excerpt; nevertheless, this essay, which occurs in the middle of The Interpretation of Dreams, should provide us with more than enough to go one. For further Freud resources, see the listing above.

freud_the_means_of_representation_in_dreams.pdf
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Reading Twenty One: Tuesday 15 September

Alphonso Lingis: 'The Physiology of Art' from The Prosthetic Impulse: From a Posthuman Present to a Biocultural Future (eds. Marquard Smith and Joanne Morra).

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The Wikipedia entry for Alphonso Lingis notes that " Lingis has had wide success as a public lecturer due to both his captivating style of writing and also the performance art atmosphere of hi slectures. During public talks he generally appears in costume or speaks amidst strange background music or recorded screams, often in total darkness". This should go some way to explaining the mix of tones and registers in this reading. For more about Lingis, here's an article from the Baltimore City Paper.

lingis_the_physiology_of_art.pdf
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Reading Twenty Two: Tuesday 22 September

Michael A. Messner: 'Barbie Girls vs. Sea Monsters: Children Constructing Gender'.

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Messner's 'Barbie Girls vs. Sea Monsters' comes from his book Out of Play: Critical Essays on Gender and Sport which provides a sociological overview and exploration of the relationship between sport, gender and, in many cases, violence. This article provides a nice, pithy summary of his work, while this blog usefully explores the relationship between his work and feminism.

messner_barbie_girls.pdf
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Reading Twenty Three: Tuesday 20 October

Pierre Bourdieu and Terry Eagleton: 'Doxa and Common Life: An Interview'

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This is a transcript of a discussion that took place in 1991. For more on Bourdieu (who is the focus of this reading) start with the inevitable Wikipedia entry. Click here to download an article by David Hesmondhalgh on Bourdiue, the Media and Cultural Production. Bruce Caron's  Community, Democracy and Performance website provides a very useful and pithy definition of symbolic violence. 

doxa_and_common_life.pdf
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Reading Twenty Four: Tuesday 27 October

Daniel Harris: 'Coolness' from Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism.

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Insert pithy comment about consumerism here.

coolness.pdf
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Reading Twenty Five: Tuesday 3 November

Hélène Cixous: 'Sorties: Out and Out: attacks / ways out / forays'

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Hélène Cixous is an immensely important thinker, theorist and philosopher. Her biography at Wikipedia gives some idea of the enormity of her career, and her contributions to Ecriture féminine . This introductory essay by Julie Haskin is also useful for contextualising Cixous' work and position.

sorties.pdf
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Reading Twenty Six: Tuesday 10 November

Richard Dawkins: 'Memes: The New Replicators' from The Selfish Gene (1989).

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Dawkins' seminal work, The Selfish Gene, has been controversial from the outset and, perhaps, most controversial of all is his work on 'memes' as the means of cultural transmission and reproduction. The web is full of material arguing for and against Dawkins' ideas - check out this article from Marxist.com about The Selfish Gene and this from a conference exploring the work of Dawkins, thirty years on.

memes_the_new_replicators.pdf
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Reading Twenty Seven: Tuesday 17 November

Three Brief Readings Approaching the Question 'What is Philosophy?'

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As a final gesture for the year's readings, attached are three very different approaches to the question 'What is Philosophy'. Reading One is by Gilles Deleuze: 'The Conditions of the Question: What is Philosophy?'. Reading Two is by Jason Pannone (and is more of a historical overview of the ways in which this question might be approached) while Reading Three, by Phillip Keller, considers the question as an act of philosophy.

deleuze_what_is_philosophy
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pannone_what_is_philosophy.pdf
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keller_what_is_philosophy
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