Individualism and Modernity
Summary
The subject of individualism continues to generate doubts and suspicions. However, its emergence in the period between the 19th and the 20th century makes it a central theme for the study of the last productions of Modernity, which requires a critical approach using the appropriate instruments. We will examine a range of literary and artistic works through a filter based on the opposition between individualism and collectivism.
What Do We Study
A first theoretical part will serve to establish the dialectic between the reasons of the self and the instances of the community, as well as to see how a model of literary criticism can be constructed on the basis of this opposition. In the second part of the course, this formula will be applied to a series of literary texts from different genres (poetry, narrative and theatre).
Which is the Line of Thought
Semiotic critique applied to the individual/collectivity tension with a special emphasis on libertarian claims.
Theoretical and Practical Approaches
Calinescu, Matei. Cinco caras de la modernidad : modernismo, vanguardia, decadencia, kitsch, posmodernismo. Tecnos-Alianza, 2003.
Freud, Sigmund. Los chistes y su relación con el inconsciente. Alianza, 1990.
Laurent, Alain. De l'individualisme. Presses Universitaires de France, 1985.
Lipovetski, Gilles. La era del vacío. Ensayos sobre el individualismo contemporáneo. Barcelona, Anagrama, 2003 [L'ère du vide. Essais sur l'individualisme contemporain, 1983]
Lukes, Steven. El individualismo. Península, 1975.
Marsden, Dora & Harriet Shaw Weaver. The Egoist. Sagwan Press, 2018.
Orlando, Francesco. Per una teoria freudiana della literatura. Einaudi, 1987.
Rand, Ayn. The Virtue of Selfishness. Penguin, 1995. (trad. cast. La virtud del egoismo. Deusto, 2021).
Stirner, Max. L'Únic i la seva propietat. Laia, 1985.