Action, Activity, Agency

The concepts of action, activity, and agency are key targets of research paradigms from Actor-Network Theory to New Materialism, Affordance theory, and praxeological approaches to literary and media studies. This seminar examines excerpts from the intellectual history of those concepts, asking how they are elaborated and problematized in various contexts and what exactly their critics reject or take for granted (e.g. anthropocentric, patriarchal, white supremacist, or other assumptions). Readings draw on the histories of philosophy, drama, rhetoric, psychoanalysis, design, sociology, gender studies, performance studies, and science studies. Readings and discussion in English.