Emmanuel Levinas is the most fascinating, powerful, and profound critic of philosophy and politics. Heidegger and Marx are both implicated by everything he does here. Consider his magnum opus, Totality and Infinity, the ethical expansion pack to Being and Time. In this work, Levinas uses the tools of phenomenology against itself to show that the ethical relation is prior to everything else we take for granted. David McKerracher teaches this work as a fundamental critique of both Marx and Heidegger, as well as all totalizing ways of thinking about history. Whereas Judith Butler and Simon Critchley politicize Levinas, McKerracher insists that we must tarry with the negative, i.e. to give Levinas his due, we must sit with his critique of politics and philosophy.
Tier 1: AUDIT: Access to the lecture Zoom calls + 6 months of access to the lecture recordings and the forum.
Tier 2: LONG-TERM BUY-IN: Everything from Tier 1 + Long-term buy-in and access to the course, forum, and lectures. This includes the basic writer’s workshop and office hours package.
Tier 3: CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM: Everything from Tiers 1 & 2 + Direct constructive critical feedback from Dave (via voice messages and/or marked up reviews of your assignments).
Tier 4: ASSESSMENT & ACCOUNTABILITY: Everything from Tiers 1-3 + (1) Access to any of the live and recorded exegetical reading sessions of this text that Dave will do + (2) Two 1-on-1 Zoom calls with Dave. The first is to be scheduled while the course is ongoing, and the second is to be conducted after the course is over, for a constructive criticism session dealing with your final project.
