General humanistic knowledge relating to contemporary culture.

1. Knowledge of the basic conceptual and theoretical approaches to contemporary culture as developed in the 20th. Century and specifically to concepts of Experience, Memory, Temporality and Identity. 2. Reading and understanding of relevant theoretical texts (books, articles) in different cultural traditions relating to 1. 3. Engaging in reflection and discussion concerning the relevance of 1 and 2 for contemporary debates that focus around Critical Theory.

I. CLASSICAL MODERNITY AND ITS PROBLEMS INTRODUCTION: Modernity understanding itself. The changing conceptions of modernity and its phases. Epochal consciousness. Text: KOSELLECK: Future past of the beginning of modernity¿ in Koselleck (1991). On the two extremes of modernity understood as history. Between Enlightenment and Critical Theory. Texts: Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man. Kant: Idea for a Universal History in a Cosmopolitan Sense. Benjamin, Walter, On the Concept of History Universality or provincialism? More than Europe. Text: Dipesh Chakrabarty. On the Margin of Europe. Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Introduction and Chapter Two). The question of experience: How does a modern Westerner relate to the world? Text: Gumbrecht. Production of presence (first chapter) II. ¿LATE-MODERNITY¿, OR WHATEVER IT IS CALLED? Introduction to late modernity. Immediacy and the extended present. The loss of the future. Texts Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism. Is there no alternative?, chap. 1-3 Hartog, Fr. Memory and History. Interview with François Hartog¿, in Critical History, 48 (2012) Gumbrecht, H.U. El presente se dilata cada vez más, in Lento presente, Madrid, Escolar y Mayo, 2010, pp. 41-68. Gómez Ramos: La inmediatez de la crisis y la experiencia del tiempo¿, in Cadahia&Velasco (2013). I¿Está el tiempo fuera de su quicio? Compensación, presentismo, y otras estrategias para un tiempo roto. Texto: Assmann, Aleida, ¿Está el tiempo fuera de su quicio? On the Rise and Fall of the Modern Time Regime. (fragmentos) Torpey, J. (2001). The Pursuit of the Past: A Polemical Perspective.¿ En Seixas, P. (ed.) Theorizing Historical Consciousness. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2004, págs. 240-255 Sebald, Los anillos de Saturno, Barcelona, Anagrama, 1998. Volver el tiempo a su sitio: reinventar lo moderno (Latour) o reaprender del pasado (Assmann) Texto: Assmann, Aleida, ¿Se ha acabado el tiempo? On the Rise and Fall of the Modern Time Regime. (fragmentos) Latour, B. ¿Recuerdo de la modernidad. Anthropolical approaches¿, en Cultural studies review, 13 (2007), págs. 12-29 Ruinas y modernidad. Sobre la historia natural. Texto: Voutsinas, M, Cavicci, J. (2019) ¿Toxic landfills, survivors trees, and dust cloud memories: More-than-human ecologies of 9/11 memory¿, en Society and Space Vol. 37 (3), 504-522 Sebald, Los anillos de Saturno. Tsing, A. ¿El hongo del fin del mundo. Sobre la posibilidad de vida en las ruinas capitalistas, Princeton UP. 2015, cap. 4. Adorno, Th. W. ¿La idea de historia natural¿, en La actualidad de la filosofía, Barcelona, Paidós, 1991). Gómez Ramos, A. ¿Dimensiones del ¿Nunca más¿. Aleida Assmann sobre el futuro y Sebald sobre la historia natural¿, en Faustino Oncina (ed.) ¿Tiene porvenir del futuro? Madrid: Plaza y Valdés, 2022. págs. 179-205. ISBN: 978-84-17121-3

Each class will be developed around one or more short texts proposed in the programme. Based on previously provided materials, the teacher will present theoretical frameworks and guiding concepts of the topic in each session. It is assumed that all students have read the texts and examined the materials prior to the class. The course is open to students' contribution of texts and materials. Some texts will be presented by students, in pairs or individually, in presentations of no more than ten minutes. The texts underlined in the timetable are those proposed to be presented by the students. All students must submit at least one text. By 1 October, students must have agreed with the teacher which text they will present. The teacher's presentation and the texts will be complemented by a class discussion.