Wendy Brown. In the account of Neoliberalism. 2016

source: European Graduate School Video Lectures    2017年1月25日
http://www.egs.edu Wendy Brown, Professor of Philosophy at The European Graduate School / EGS. Saas-Fee Switzerland. August 13 2016.
Wendy Brown is Professor of Political Science at the University of California Berkeley. Her research interests include the history of political and social theory, Continental philosophy, and critical theory, together with the examination of contemporary capitalism. In her research into the problems that plague contemporary capitalism and neoliberalism, she employs theoretical works of Michel Foucault, Max Weber, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, and Frankfurt school.
In 1983, Wendy Brown received her doctoral degree from Princetown University. She subsequently taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz and also at Williams College. Since 1999, she has been teaching at the University of California, Berkeley.
Edgework: Critical Essays on Knowledge and Politics (2005) consists of seven articles which were all written for some particular occasion. Brown emphasises this trait of her book and claims that “such occasions mimic, in certain ways, the experience of the political realm: one is challenged to think here, now, about a problem that is set and framed by someone else, and to do so before a particular audience or in dialogue with others not of one’s own choosing.” Every essay in this book begins with a particular problem: what is the relationship between love, loyalty, and dissent in contemporary American political life?; how did neoliberal rationality become a form of governmentality?; what are the main problems of women’s studies programs?, etc. According to Brown, the aim of these essays is not to produce definitive answers to the given questions but “to critically interrogate the framing and naming practices, challenge the dogmas (including those of the Left and of feminism), and discern the constitutive powers shaping the problem at hand.”
In Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire (2006), Wendy Brown subverts the usual and widely accepted conception that tolerance is one of the most remarkable achievements of the modern Western world. She argues that tolerance cannot be perceived as a complete opposite to violence, but that can also be used to justify violence. In order to substantiate this thesis, Brown associates tolerance with figures like George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Samuel Huntington, Susan Okin, Michael Ignatieff, Bernard Lewis, and Seyla Benhabib and claims that “tolerance as a political practice is always conferred by the dominant, it is always a certain expression of domination even as it offers protection or incorporation to the less powerful.”
Walled States, Waning Sovereignty (2010) examines the revival of wall-building in the contemporary world. She shows that the function of these walls is ultimately problematic because they cannot stop crimes, migration, or smuggling, cannot play a defensive role in the case of a war like they did in the past, and they cannot do anything against potential terrorist attacks. However, even if they cannot stop all these threats, walls still have an important symbolic function which Brown explores in her book.
Her most recent work Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution (2015) uses Michel Foucault’s The Birth of Biopolitics to analyze the hollowing and evisceration of democracy under neoliberal rationality. Brown describes neoliberalism as a furtive attack on the very foundation of democracy. She treats “neoliberalism as a governing rationality through which everything is “economized” and in a very specific way: human beings become market actors and nothing but, every field of activity is seen as a market, and every entity (whether public or private, whether person, business, or state) is governed as a firm. Importantly, this is not merely a matter of extending commodification and monetization everywhere, as in the old Marxist depiction of capital’s transformation of everyday life. Neoliberalism construes even non-wealth generating spheres—such as learning, dating, or exercising—in market terms, submits them to market metrics, and governs them with market techniques and practices. Above all, it casts people as human capital who must constantly tend to their own present and future value.” To be saved, democracy again needs to become not only the object of theoretical rethinking but also of political struggle.

The German Intellectual Tradition: Phase 1

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source: Goethe-Institut Max Mueller Bhavan  上次更新：2015年8月13日

A series of lectures by eminent scholars; coordinated by Professor Sobhanlal Datta Gupta, former S. N. Banerjee Professor of Political Science, Calcutta University. As we know, the German intellectual
tradition is of crucial importance for understanding of social sciences. Many important clues to the understanding of new perspectives like the debate on modernity and Enlightenment, postmodernism, post-colonialism, identity and self, etc. can be traced to the contributions of the German tradition. Considering the importance of this theme, Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata is going to launch a programme of lectures on the following thinkers, namely, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Max Weber,
Nietzsche, Freud, Husserl, Heidegger, Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Lukács, Popper, Gadamer, Wittgenstein, Arendt, Benjamin and Habermas. The first phase of the Programme (September, November, 2013; January, March, 2014) will cover four lectures on Kant, Hegel, Marx and Max
Weber. Each thinker would be discussed in two sessions, the duration being of two hours each. The sessions will be addressed by eminent resource persons, followed by interaction with the participants.

Part I - Immanuel Kant: Session I - Lecture by Professor Subir Ranjan Bhattacharya 2:16:45  
Part I - Immanuel Kant: Session II - Lecture by Professor Gopal Chandra Khan 1:02:16
Part II -Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Session I - Lecture by Professor Pralhad Sarkar 1:23:48
Part II -Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Session II - Lecture by Professor Krishna Roy 1:29:48  
Part III -Karl Marx: Session I - Lecture by Professor Saurin Bhattacharyya 1:32:29
Part III -Karl Marx: Session II - Lecture by Professor Samik Bandyopadhyay 1:28:58
Part IV -Max Weber: Session I - Lecture by Professor Prasanta Ray 1:28:59
Part IV -Max Weber: Session II - Lecture by Professor Abhijit Mitra 1:28:59

Foundations of Modern Social Theory (Fall 2009, Yale U) by Iván Szelényi

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source: YaleCourses        Last updated on 2014年7月2日

Foundations of Modern Social Thought (SOCY 151)

This course provides an overview of major works of social thought from the beginning of the modern era through the 1920s. Attention is paid to social and intellectual contexts, conceptual frameworks and methods, and contributions to contemporary social analysis. Writers include Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim. Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses

1. Introduction 45:52
2. Hobbes: Authority, Human Rights and Social Order 42:56
3. Locke: Equality, Freedom, Property and the Right to Dissent 45:23
4. The Division of Powers- Montesquieu 44:13
5. Rousseau: Popular Sovereignty and General Will 40:28
6. Rousseau on State of Nature and Education 44:02
7. Utilitarianism and Liberty, John Stuart Mill 42:15
8. Smith: The Invisible Hand 46:30
9. Marx's Theory of Alienation 48:04
10. Marx's Theory of Historical Materialism (1) 50:24
11. Marx's Theory of Historical Materialism (cont.) 48:53
12. Marx's Theory of History 51:30
13. Marx's Theory of Class and Exploitation 51:13
14. Nietzsche on Power, Knowledge and Morality 46:18
15. Freud on Sexuality and Civilization 53:29
16. Weber on Protestantism and Capitalism 51:15
17. Conceptual Foundations of Weber's Theory of Domination 52:46
18. Weber on Traditional Authority 50:18
19. Weber on Charismatic Authority 49:26
20. Weber on Legal-Rational Authority 47:54
21. Weber's Theory of Class 44:38
22. Durkheim and Types of Social Solidarity 37:39
23. Durkheim's Theory of Anomie 46:42
24. Durkheim on Suicide 50:49
25. Durkheim and Social Facts 51:09

Lectures on Great Social Thinkers - Alan Macfarlane 2001

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source: ayabaya    Last updated on 2014年6月30日

A series of lectures for second year anthropology students in the Department of Social Anthropology in Cambridge by Alan Macfarlane. For the readings and higher quality downloadable versions of these lectures, please see under 'Lectures' on www.alanmacfarlane.com

1. A map of social theories, 1000-2000 42:57
2. The Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) 51:22
3. Adam Smith (1723-1790) 47:42
4. Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) 51:50
5. Lecture on Karl Marx (1818-1883) 53:42
6. Lecture on Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) 47:07
7. Lecture on Max Weber (1864-1920) 43:03
8. Lecture on Ernest Gellner (1925-1995) 44:58
9. Lecture on F.W.Maitland (1850-1906) 49:13