Topics in German Intellectual History: Castrations

When the machismo of fascism gets unbearable and #metoo comes into full swing, cries for the castration of patriarchy grow louder. This seminar investigates the concept of castration from literary, artistic, psychoanalytic, feminist, queer, postcolonial, and philosophical angles. We think through the question of how to counter a symbolic order that is so firmly organized around the phallus that any attempt at castration is reappropriated as proof of the transcendental value of the phallus. With guest speakers.