The theme of this graduate seminar is the distinction and relationship between extraordinary and everyday modes of power, conflict, and identification.
1. We begin with two western marxists, Herbert Marcuse and Antonio Gramsci, who explained the lack of (extraordinary) socialist revolutions—especially in industrialized countries—by way of (everyday) popular consciousness.
2. Next we turn towards political theorists—Enrique Dussel, Hannah Arendt, and Frantz Fanon—who theorized how extraordinary (constituent) power could be institutionalized within, beneath, or besides everyday (constituted) power.
3. Finally, we consider discursively-, culturally-, or epistemically-oriented theorists who challenge (our working conception of) the extraordinary/everyday politics distinction: Edward Said, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Michel Foucault.
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