By the end of the course the students will have gained conceptual and critical-reflective knowledge and will be in a position to historicise and contextualise conditions and consequences of heterogeneous subjectivation processes and recognise specific forms of subjectivation of the present.

“Becoming a subject is a paradoxical process, whereby active and passive moments and external and self-control are inextricably interwoven with one another” (Ulrich Bröckling, 2007). This lecture addresses these moments of external- and self-control. As a contemporary programme of subject analysis, the event will address Michel Foucault’s discourse theory, Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the “Habitus”, Ernesto Laclau’s thought tool of “cultural hegemony”, Judith Butler’s concept of “performativity and subversion” as well as the findings of postcolonial studies.

Presentation, plenary discussion, film showings

Written examination

Andreas Reckwitz: Subjekt, Transcript-Verlag 2008 and one of a choice of ten empirical subject analyses of the present (Baumann, Boudrieu, Bröckling, Butler, Castel, Ehrenberg, Illouz and others)