JUNE SESSION // June 1st – June 22nd, 2014.

Media & Communication: June First Year, First Group // June 1st – June 22nd, 2014.

Simon Critchley: PHILOSOPHY, ETHICS AND POLITICS. (3 credits)This seminar will show how theory can bring us closer to understanding ‘wherewe are,’ and how we might think with and against the present.

Wolfgang Schirmacher: MEDIA CULTURE & ARTIFICIAL LIFE. (3 credits)Explores media culture as post-technological event (Ereignis), possibilities for the art of living authentically (Geviert), and ethical dasein beyond metaphysics (Gelassenheit).

Siegfried Zielinski: AUDIOVISUAL HISTORY AND TECHNOCULTURE. (3 credits)Surveys the history of mediations through which ideas and visual representation have become a material force. It enables an archeology of hearing and seeing by technical means.

Samuel Weber: MEDIA AND THE UNCANNY. (3 credits)Explores the philosophical concept of the uncanny as it bears on the media by reading Sigmund Freud, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida.

Alenka Zupancic: NIETZSCHE AND LACAN. (3 credits)The courses will focus on two main questions, both in relation to Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and to Freudo-Lacanian psychoanalysis. Through discussion andreadings this course willl examine focus around two themes, Negativity and Real.

Elie During: TIME, SIMULTANEITY AND COEXISTENCE. (3 credits)Focuses on the emerging figures of time, simultaneity and coexistence in the contemporary world, at the intersection of art, physics and philosophy at large, exploring concrete spatio-temporal configurations in contemporary art, architecture and cinema.

Mandatory Seminars and Workshops:

Wolfgang Schirmacher: RESEARCH METHODS. (1 credit workshop for First Year students)Introduction to basic research styles such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, dialectics, deconstruction in preparation for EGS dissertation projects.

Wolfgang Schirmacher: FOUNDATION IN MEDIA PHILOSOPHY. (1 creditworkshop)Introduces and explores the critical differences as well as productive blending of Communication Theory and Continental Philosophy which culminates in 'Media Philosophy'.

Elective Seminars and Workshops:

Wolfgang Schirmacher: RESEARCH FOR M.A. THESIS. (1 credit

workshop)Discussing projects for M.A. theses in order to find connections to philosophical works and locate directions for theoretical research.

Media & Communication / Digital Design: June First Year,Second Group // June 1st – June 22nd, 2014.

Neil Leach: A THEORY OF DIGITAL DESIGN. (3 credits)Presents a theoretical framework for understanding and evaluating a new way sensibility towards design that is sweeping through not only architecture and urbanism but all of the creative industries.

John Frazer: EVOLUTIONARY DIGITAL DESIGN. (3 credits)Explores conceptual generic ideas encoded in digital form to create a population of genetic code scripts that are then developed in an environment and subject to analysis and selection in a cyclical manner.

Achim Menges: MACHINE AND MATERIAL COMPUTATION. (3 credits)Focuses on the latent computational convergence of digital procedures and physical processes, with a particular focus on its ramifications on design thinking and practice.

Patrik Schumacher: PARAMETRISCISM & AUTOPOIESIS. (3 credits)Presents an outline of the theory of architectural autopoiesis, a unified theory of architecture that contextualizes the discipline’s most fundamental concepts, methods and values historically with respect to architecture’s societal function.

Benjamin Bratton: PLANETARY-SCALE COMPUTATION. (3 credits)Develops a theory and program for design in the age of planetary-scale computation, emphasizing the forces that drive the possibility of form, andlocates design within a complex and contradictory global computational economy.

Alisa Andrasek: OPEN SYNTHESIS AND DESIGN. (3 credits)Explores the necessity for resilient bounding of global-local, generic-particular relations and transference, a navigational system for which increasingly accelerated scientific discoveries are taken not as obstacles but as opportunities for further synthesis.

Mandatory Seminars and Workshops:

Wolfgang Schirmacher: RESEARCH METHODS. (1 credit workshop for First Year students)Introduction to basic research styles such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, dialectics, deconstruction in preparation for EGS dissertation projects.

Wolfgang Schirmacher: FOUNDATION IN MEDIA PHILOSOPHY. (1 creditworkshop)Introduces and explores the critical differences as well as

productive blending of Communication Theory and Continental Philosophy which culminates in 'Media Philosophy'.

Elective Seminars and Workshops:

Wolfgang Schirmacher: RESEARCH FOR M.A. THESIS. (1 credit workshop)Discussing projects for M.A. theses in order to find connections to philosophical works and locate directions for theoretical research.

Media & Communication: June Second Year // June 1st – June 22nd, 2014.

Diane Davis: EMMANUEL LEVINAS: LANGUAGE AND ETHICS. (3 credits)This course examines fundamental concepts developed at the intersections of language and ethics in the works of Emmanuel Levinas (e.g., face, illeity, substitution, trace, il y a), with a special focus on what he calls “the language relation,” and with a consideration of comparative approaches in Immanuel Kant, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Blanchot, and Jacques Derrida.

Victor J. Vitanza: LYOTARD: HESITATING THOUGHT. (3 credits)The worksof Jean-Francois-Lyotard: Just Gaming (with Jean-Loup Thébaud), Libidinal Economy, and The Differend: Phrases in Dispute. We will also study Laura Kipnis's Marx: A Video (in relation to Libidinal Economy); sections from Werner Herzog's Where the Green Ants Dream (in relation to The Differend); and John Hancock's Bang the Drum Slowly (in relation to Just Gaming).

Boris Groys: THE GESAMTKUNSTWERK. (3 credits)Discusses the notion of the Gesamtkunstwerk as it was formulated by Richard Wagner and its further development in the artistic projects of Futurism, Dada and Russian Constructivism. There will be also discussed the theoretical interpretationsof modern technique as a holistic artistic (anti)technique – in the writings by Ernst Juenger, Martin Heidegger and Marshall McLuhan.

Michael Schmidt and DJ Spooky: MUSIC PHILOSOPHY & SOUND. (3 credits)Discusses the philosophy of music of Arthur Schopenhauer, RolandBarthes and Theodor W. Adorno and explores the clashes and resonances between multiple styles and cultural approaches to music—from classical composition to rap, hip-hop and avant-garde sound collage.

Slavoj Žižek: HEGEL: NECESSITY AND CONTINGENCY. (3 credits)A provocative reading of Hegel which connects his so-called idealism to contemporary philosophical, psychoanalytical and aesthetic discussion, and the emphasis on Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Lacan, Quantum Theory, andthe contingency as Hegel’s driving motive.

Pierre Alferi: ADVANCED EXPERIMENTAL FILM. (3 credits)Theory and

practice of experimental filmmaking will be explored – an exercise in cinematic poetry. Participants are encouraged to show and discuss their own work.

Mandatory Seminars and Workshops:

Wolfgang Schirmacher: M.A. TUTORIAL. (1 credit)Discusses the outlines for possible M.A. thesis projects.

Elective Seminars and Workshops:

Wolfgang Schirmacher: RESEARCH FOR M.A. THESIS. (1 credit workshop)Discussing projects for M.A. theses in order to find connections to philosophical works and locate directions for theoretical research.

AUGUST SESSION // August 2nd - August 23rd,2014.

Media & Communication: August First Year, First Group // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2014.

Alain Badiou: PHILOSOPHY, ETHICS, ART. (3 credits)In defense of systematic philosophy and in a critical dialogue with Gilles Deleuze basic issues such as the ethics of fidelity, truth, politics, and art are rediscovered, proclaiming a manifesto for philosophy.

Martin Hielscher with author: LITERATURE AS COMMUNICATION. (3 credits)Introduces Literature as model of communication and stimulates creative writing and philosophical thinking. Includes a workshop with a guest author such as Marcel Beyer, Durs Grünbein, Shelley Jackson, MichelHouellebecq, Julian Barnes, Nicholson Baker, Colum McCann, Nuruddin Farah, Ilija Trojanow, or Jeffrey Eugenides.

Avital Ronell: FINITUDE IN PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE AND ART. (3 credits)Explores the finitude of language and the singularity of the ethical event in a culture of absence, disappearance, and escape in relation to memory, fiction, and the human.

Anne Dufourmantelle: SEX AND PHILOSOPHY. (3 credits)How to understand hospitality in our mad age - a Derridean reading of social practices by a pithy psychoanalyst.

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (TBC): THE POLITICS OF THE COMMON. (3 credits)Revisiting the political sphere and its underlying philosophies and evaluating the potential for a perceptual change that includes the Internet.

Wolfgang Schirmacher: MEDIA CULTURE & ARTIFICIAL LIFE. (3 credits)

Explores media culture as post-technological event (Ereignis), possibilities for the art of living authentically (Geviert), and ethical dasein beyond metaphysics (Gelassenheit).

Mandatory Seminars and Workshops:

Wolfgang Schirmacher: RESEARCH METHODS. (1 credit workshop)Introduction to basic research styles such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, dialectics, deconstruction in preparation for EGS dissertation projects.

Sigrid Hackenberg: FOUNDATION IN MEDIA PHILOSOPHY. (1 credit workshop)Introduces and explores the critical differences as well as productive blending of Communication Theory and Continental Philosophy which culminates in 'Media Philosophy'.

Wolfgang Schirmacher: M.A. TUTORIAL. (1 credit)Discusses outlines for possible M.A. thesis projects.

Elective Seminars and Workshops:

Suzanne Doppelt: ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY. (1 credit workshop)Photography as non-representational language will be demonstrated and explored. Students have the opportunity to discuss their own work with anrenowned French photographer.

Mark Daniel Cohen: ACADEMIC WRITING. (1 credit workshop)With focus on the development of productive thesis statements and the organization and composition of coherent argumentation in order to prepare students to begin their thesis and Ph.D. dissertations.

Media & Communication: August First Year, Second Group // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2014.

Christopher Fynsk: HEIDEGGER: PHILOSOPHY AND ART. (3 credits)Explores the future potential of Martin Heidegger, one of Europe's most influential 20th century philosophers and addresses divergent practices ofthought and art in post-Heideggerian thinkers.

Catherine Malabou: PLASTICITY, SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. (3 credits)Spiritedly advancing the concept of ‘plasticity’ as an contribution to the end of Metaphysics (Martin Heidegger). The “transformational masks” of Claude Lévi-Strauss are investigated as well as Hegel’s dialectics and the Derridean "differance".

Giorgio Agamben: HOMO SACER. (3 credits)A questioning of how radical subjectivity and the coming community can contribute to a paradigm of human existence.

Werner Hamacher: CRITIQUE OF PURE FEELING. (3 credits)Investigatesthe virtual, movement, affect, sensation, expressions after Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. The body thinks with pure feelings before it acts and sensation is a transformational call-back to feeling.

Graham Harman: SPECULATIVE REALISM. (3 credits)Demonstrates the advantages of an object-oriented realism against recent continental mathematistic, scientististic, and psychonalytic approaches that claim to escape idealism but fail to do so.

Hubertus von Amelunxen: PHILOSOPHY OF PHOTOGRAPHY & FILM. (3credits)Explores issues of meaning and representation, the interface of photography, video, and film, and the terror of the body in digital space (with emphasis on Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin and Vilem Flusser).

Mandatory Seminars and Workshops:

Wolfgang Schirmacher: RESEARCH METHODS. (1 credit workshop)Introduction to basic research styles such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, dialectics, deconstruction in preparation for EGS dissertation projects.

Sigrid Hackenberg: FOUNDATION IN MEDIA PHILOSOPHY. (1 credit workshop)Introduces and explores the critical differences as well as productive blending of Communication Theory and Continental Philosophy which culminates in 'Media Philosophy'.

Wolfgang Schirmacher: M.A. TUTORIAL. (1 credit)Discusses outlines for possible M.A. thesis projects.

Elective Seminars and Workshops:

Suzanne Doppelt: ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY. (1 credit workshop)Photography as non-representational language will be demonstrated and explored. Students have the opportunity to discuss their own work with anrenowned French photographer.

Mark Daniel Cohen: ACADEMIC WRITING. (1 credit workshop)With focus on the development of productive thesis statements and the organization and composition of coherent argumentation in order to prepare students to begin their thesis and Ph.D. dissertations.

Media & Communication: August Second Year, First Group // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2014.

Judith Butler: ETHICS AND POLITICS AFTER THE SUBJECT. (3 credits)Addresses theories of the subject and explores issues of gender politics, subversion of identity, power, ethical violence.

Laurence Rickels with artist Sharon Lockhart: HAUNTED THOUGHT AND ART. (3 credits)A critical analysis of the accidental structure and underworld happening in literature, performance and video art. An invited artist demonstrates the transformative processes involved. Martha Rosler, Sue de Beer, Diana Thater, Robert Bramkamp and Caspar Stracke have participated previously.

Jacques Rancière: SHOWING, TELLING, DOING. (3 credits)Discussing the political question of the use and valua of images, the political significance and meaning of showing, and the extent to which showing can be equated with telling and with demonstrating.

François Noudelmann: AFFINITIES IN PHILOSOPHY, ARTS, AND SCIENCE. (3 credits)A transdisciplinary search for hidden patterns with revealing and concealing powers.

Mike Figgis: ADVANCED INDEPENDENT FILMMAKING. (3 credits)Focuses on the idea of narrative and non-linear storytelling, Blending the creative and the practical; Covering the practical aspects of directing, producing and writing films.

Geert Lovink: POLITICS AND AESTHETICS OF THE WEB 2.0. (3 credits)Provides an overview from blogs, search, online video, Wikipedia and social media to activist strategies like Wikileaks.

Mandatory Seminars and Workshops:

Wolfgang Schirmacher: M.A. TUTORIAL. (1 credit)Discusses outlines for possible M.A. thesis projects.

Elective Seminars and Workshops:

Suzanne Doppelt: ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY. (1 credit workshop)Photography as non-representational language will be demonstrated and explored. Students have the opportunity to discuss their own work with anrenowned French photographer.

Mark Daniel Cohen: ACADEMIC WRITING. (1 credit workshop)With focus on the development of productive thesis statements and the organization and composition of coherent argumentation in order to prepare students to begin their thesis and Ph.D. dissertations.

Media & Communication: August Second Year, Second Group // August 2nd - August 23rd, 2014.

Judith Balso with poet: POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY. (3 credits)The complex relationship between poetry and philosophy and the notion of poetry as a thought will be explored in a cordial dialogue with an internationally recognized poet. Jacques Roubaud, Yang Lian, Jan Zwicky,

Michel Deguy, Alessandro de Francesco, Philippe Beck, Nachoem Wijnberghave participated previously.

Sylvere Lotringer: JEAN BAUDRILLARD. (3 credits)A tribute to the EGS faculty member who recently passed away: An examination of Jean Baudrillard's philosophical legacy and his impact on the critique of contemporary culture.

Hendrik Speck: CODE, CONTROL AND RELIGION. (3 credits)Investigatesthe clash between freedom and control in in the semi religious digital empires, evaluates the liberating impact of the Internet for media, art, andculture.

Thomas Zummer: MICHAEL FOUCAULT. (3 credits)A critical reading of the philosopher Michel Foucault who changed our understanding of modernity with his inquiries into madness, punishment, sexuality and the technologies of the self.

Geoffrey Bennington: DECONSTRUCTION: THE POLITICS OF DERRIDA.(3 credits)Through a close textual analysis in the spirit of deconstruction this course moves beyond the static page towards a political reading of the power of deconstruction.

Elissa Marder: PSYCHOANALYSIS, MEDIA, DECONSTRUCTION. (3 credits)Explores the limits of the human in different media in antiquity, modernity and postmodernity, examining questions relating to technologyand birth, photography and psychoanalysis, and the radical forms that poetry takes in a prosaic world.

Mandatory Seminars and Workshops:

Wolfgang Schirmacher: M.A. TUTORIAL. (1 credit)Discusses outlines for possible M.A. thesis projects.

Elective Seminars and Workshops:

Suzanne Doppelt: ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY. (1 credit workshop)Photography as non-representational language will be demonstrated and explored. Students have the opportunity to discuss their own work with anrenowned French photographer.

Mark Daniel Cohen: ACADEMIC WRITING. (1 credit workshop)With focus on the development of productive thesis statements and the organization and composition of coherent argumentation in order to prepare students to begin their thesis and Ph.D. dissertations.