I just wanted to share this gem from today’s NYT (free for CUNY folk: sign up via Library):

Opinion | Larry David, Philosopher King

Larry David’s long-running show was hilarious, but it also revolved around a complex view of modern philosophy.

Numerous authors and texts that we’ve read together are either name-checked (Freud, Nietzsche) or resonate with the analysis of Larry David’s humor (Althusser’s theory that “ideology has a material existence” is proved, time and time again, by the show’s display of unspoken, and highly ideological, norms that are conveyed through bodily behavior rather than words).

Pretty pretty pretty pretty good.

On another note, I’m so impressed by the quality of your recent posts on Freud’s fetishism, Lacan’s mirror stage, and Mulvey’s feminist theory of cinema. So many of you are moving beyond “getting it” (which is already a high bar) and thinking about applications (Irianna’s exploration of Shelley’s Frankenstein via Lacan; Emma’s arguments about the “cool girl trope” and Mulvey; Gabi and Leonee’s discussions of Marilyn Monroe and cinema; and Stevie’s comparison of mainstream cinematic fetishism/mirroring to Chantal Ackerman’s experimental feminist cinema ) and extensions or critical push-backs (Shounak’s and Roddy’s reading of “fetishism”).

I could easily have linked to 4 or 5 other excellent posts. I’m really happy to see you reading and writing and thinking at such a high level! Read each other’s stuff when you can!

As promised, here are answers to the midterm questions. I didn’t have a very good key from prior terms, and I asked a lot of new questions on new texts, so I had to “take” my own exam, answering all 18 questions.

Uh, it was pretty tough. Be sure to check your iffy answers against mine, and feel free to reach out if you’re still puzzled on anything. Good review for the final exam, which will emphasize the new material from Freud onward but will also bring back some of this older material.

I hope you’re all recovering from the challenging midterm: I’ve rolled up my sleeves and am grading now (which is definitely on the “alienated” side of any prof’s labor).

Meanwhile, I came across a review of a book by Yanis Varoufakis, a Greek economist, arguing that we have entered a new phase of economic development that represents a return of sorts, a “technofeudalist” era. The article rightly points out that there’s a wave of analyses at present making parallel arguments–the article mentions McKenzie Wark’s Capital is Dead, and I would add Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism–that, whatever their differences, believe that we have reached an inflection point where the development of global capitalism out of the ashes of medieval feudalism to the present is giving way to … something new.

We just took a little sip of Marx, and you’d need some big gulps from Capital to properly contextualize Varoufakis’s book, but the bit from Capital we read together, with its attempt to show the distinctiveness of capitalism and the use of money as “universal equivalent” by contrasting it with feudal barter, Crusoe’s self-accounting, and the idealized communist collective organization of labor through planning, give us enough light to read by in assessing these recent books.

See you Thursday, when we’ll reel back the histori-o-meter to 1900 or so and run it back again, looking at the development of theories of the psyche and the subject from Freud onward.

As promised, here is what to expect for the midterm exam on Monday 3/18:

• after some thought, I’ve revised the contract terms for the midterm downward, eliminating the big essay. Here are the new requirements:
  • A contract: complete nine short answers (there will be at least 12 to choose from)
  • B contract: complete seven short answers
• we will review for the exam by surveying the study questions on our site: come to class on 3/14 with questions in hand so we can use the time efficiently
• all devices and books will be put away prior to the exam, and all responses will be entered onto “blue books” I will provide. Each student can bring one page of notes (handwritten or typed on one side). If you elect to bring notes, you must submit the sheet with your exam, with your name on it.
• make arrangements to be present and be on time on Monday 3/18 without fail. Unless there is a documented excuse (serious illness, injury, or other serious problem), there will be no make-ups.
• as stated in the contract, students who give satisfactory answers for the minimum number of questions for your contract will pass. Students who write unsatisfactory exam maybe downgraded to a lower contract (i.e., from an A to a B or B to a C).

Feel free to ask questions or express concerns via email or in class.