With George Fourlas
If speech is action, as key twentieth-century and current philosophers argue, then what is it that we are doing to each other when we talk? Is linguistic injury a real thing? To what extent can, and should, we control our bodily habits of speaking and responding? In this course we will explore the fields of discourse ethics, communicative action, interaction and embodiment studies, critical race theory, and decolonial theory. Taken collectively these pursuits disclose a complex and shifting terrain of processes and effects of communication at biological, affective, intra-personal, personal, interpersonal, and societal levels. One goal of the course is to recognize and problematize some of the norms, and interrupt some of the dynamics, which inform our ordinary and unreflective modes of interaction. In other words, we will reflect on how we can transform our relational modes in a way that affords greater reciprocity and collective self-determination.