Session IV

Following Eagleton, the text I next want you to read are the chapters on the legend of Faust as interpreted in a materialist way (ie not really about characters and individual stories, but a grand dissection of the human project as presented to us from 1750 onwards, as technology takes over, 'God is dead' and there is rampant social change. The point, for instance, is not for you to feel sympathy for Gretchen, Faust's lover as somebody in a fairy story, but to realise we have all been Fausts and Gretchen's in our day, and that this story, which took all of Goethe's life to write, is the universal tragic story of development. Once you have grasped this, so many many things become clear.

Hey!

I've only had two responses so far and it's nearly 10.am. What the hell are you doing? Please forward your blog links so I can discuss them with you, and other general stuff via fresh posts!

Session Monday 31st Oct. I said theory wouldn't kill you...

But we end up in hospital from time to time. Thankfully I'm now simply confined to the couch, surrounded by pills and potions. I might occasionally raise a smile at Great Military Blunders and throw a book at the tv during Autumn Watch, but most of the time I stare horrified at the correlation between what I've read in theory and what's happening on my tv screen.

So 'Hi' from the couch, open your laptops, and send me, via the comments button, the address of your personal theory750 blog. I've had a terrible time trying to access these, but it gets very easy if, next to 'Sites I Follow' we find a 'Link' to this particular personal blogsite of your own.

Then think about what you'd like to say/know about Terry Eagleton. Make those comments also by using the comment button.

You can talk about broarder issues to do with the relationship between the texts as we move forward.I will be making comments back on to the site for the duration of the session, firstly on how your blogs seem to be working so far, secondly on Eagleton. Feel free to use the room computer or your own laptop to communicate, and make sure you refresh my site ocaisionally to get the latest comments. Ill be online until 10.45am. Stay till the end, when I will present your next text.

So lets go!

SESSION III

This is your third session read. Whilst you will find it necessary to understand Eagleton's big picture of present cultural theory, at least you don't have negotiate many of the ingredients themselves, since whilst this book is undoubtedly very serious, it is written with such humour and love of aside, that you almost assimilate cultural theory by mistake.

You can read the first seven pages on Amazon's 'look inside' feature, but you should buy the bloody thing itself as a gesture of defiance.

Session II

We started with our present situation, many conundrums of course- what would you expect! For next week please read Mike Davis on 'Fear and Money in Dubai' and Dave Hickey's 'At Home in the Neon' from the fabulous 'Air Guitar'. Of course the title 'air guitar' refers to the function of the critic, who has to understand something without actually doing it.

S

Welcome

Critical Thinking Module 2011

Welcome.

First thing, follow this blog so that I can begin to know who you are, and so you can begin conversations with each other if you fancy it. Secondly, set up your own Critical Thinking blog via blogspot.com. Thirdly start work, read Jonathon Meades on Zaha Hadid (download) and Alain Badiou 'This Crisis is the Spectacle: Where is the Real?'(download) for the week 4 session.

Be prepared to get hold of Dave Hickey's Air Guitar for the following one.

See below.

Theory 750

SUNDAY, 4 SEPTEMBER 2011

I want you to read and mentally digest an essay from this 'little red book'. The essay is easily found on the web as long as you search for Alain Badiou This Crisis Is the Spectacle: Where Is the Real? It's one of those modest pieces of writing that could blow your socks off. Often Badiou, whilst frighteningly clever, is a bit dense, but this piece is written for a newspaper, hence is more readable.
Please read Jonathan Meades on Zaha Hadid in combination with this text.

Also, please each of you set up your own individual Theory750 blogs via blogspot.com

Discussion: It's difficult to gain a perspective on Badiou at this stage. His introduction at this point was to highlight our necessary confrontation with the question 'What is the Real?' This of course implies we are 'living in a lie', as evidenced by our highly theatrical (and highly nuanced) media and politics where vested interests, not the benefit of all, are paraded before us in a clear period of global crisis. If you are wondering what this global crisis might be, four corners of the discussion might be: Climate Change, Increased National and Global Inequality, Financial Iniquity and the challenges of the Bio-technological.

Theory 750

A 750, just fast enough to kill you, but big enough to have some real fun. It takes a while to get to ride a 750, you might start at 250, move up to 500, then graduate to the real thing. That's my first bike up there, a Honda G5 250 and I was 22.
Theory can fuck you up, it's a well known means to stop you doing anything. The purpose of this course is to talk theory as if it's almost common sense. It won't fuck you up, it might just make you angry.
We go backwards from today. Start by reading Jonathan Meades on Zaha Hadid from the (absurdly titled) 'Intelligent Life' magazine and Alain Badiou's 'If this is the Spectacle, where is the Real' both available via the net.
The books you will need to study from then on, in sequence, are:

Mike Davis: Evil Paradises
Terry Eagleton: After Theory
Dave Hickey: Air Guitar

William Burroughs: The Job
Marshall Berman: All that's Solid Melts in to Air
Henri Lefebvre: The Production of Space
Evelyn Waugh: Decline and Fall
Ayn Rand: The Fountainhead (film)
John Doss Passos: USA

Please join up as followers to this site, and we'll start it up.