2020-21 Pomona College Catalog 
    
    Mar 28, 2024  
2020-21 Pomona College Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG] Use the dropdown above to select the current 2023-24 catalog.

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ENGL153 PO - The Beyond of Language

When Offered: Spring 2022.
Instructor(s): J. Kirk
Credit: 1

It goes without saying that there is nothing outside of language. But the question is what sort of thing that nothing might be? And whether it can be known or experienced. In this seminar we will investigate some or all of the following: birdsong and other animal utterances; the grammar of colonialism; mystical languages of unsaying; the task of the translator; the transmission of the incomprehensible; the writing of the disaster; speaking in tongues. Although we will be reading ancient and modern texts, our particular emphasis will be on materials from the Middle Ages, that is, the last era before the capitalist schism that has led to the technocratic dream in which we now toil. Readings may include works by Plato, Aristotle, Porphyry, Pseudo-Dionysius, Anselm, Ibn Arabi, Marie de France, Dante, Chaucer, the anonymous author of the Cloud of Unknowing, Nebrjia, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Benjamin, Agamben.
Course has been revised for fall 2021.  
Satisfies the following General Education Requirement(s), subject to conditions explained in the Degree Requirements section of this Catalog:
Area 1



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