207
Final Exam

I What is the role of language in representation (the relationship between language and world or self) in Nietzsche's "On Truth or Lying in a Non-Moral Sense" or in Maupassant's Le Horla.

II What is the interplay between representations as knowledge and representations as power in one of the following works or critical essays that we have studied:  The Maids,  "Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination," "The Science Wars in India,"  "Consuming Images," or the Coca Cola Articles.

I  will expect that you can:
1.  speak about representations, not the objects of representations.
2.  speak about representations as artificial constructs of world or self, not as natural mirrors of the real world.
3.  speak about how representations both communicate knowledge (that is accurate or inaccurate) and exercise power (that is real or illusory).
4.  explain how the dominant discourse defines the words and roles of both dominant and subordinate groups.
5.  explain how dominant and subordinate groups internalize the words and roles that the dominant discourse gives them and repeat these in a manner that is not always conscious.
6.  explain the power strategies of counter-discourses.
7.  explain how counter-discourses can have unintended effects on the subordinate group they are supposed to liberate.  In particular, how discourses on equality (on the political right or left) can produce inequality.