Liberalism is at once a theoretical model of democratic politics, an
elaborate set of institutional arrangements, an ideological account
of capitalist social logic, and a aggregation of naturalized
presuppositions, discourses, dispositions, and practices governing
everyday life. Given the pervasiveness of its model of social
relations, liberalism is widely criticized for undermining non-
contractual social bonds, universalizing disembodied, abstract
rationality as the condition of social membership, deploying an
unstable and contradictory public/private distinction, and
functioning as the political veil of capitalism. Such critiques have
been pivotal in political theory, Cultural Studies, critiques of
post-colonialism and globalization, analyses of post-modernity, and
other major contemporary intellectual currents. At the same time, it
is common practice to construe liberalism as a set of propositions
to be accepted or rejected and to approach popular discourses as
sites where these propositions are contested. It will be our task in
this course to problematize both critiques of liberal citizenship
and the critical practice of treating media discourses as either
supplements to political practice or sites of resistance to
oppression. Focusing on the paradigmatic example of friendship, we
will grapple with the complex relationship between forms of social
membership privileged by liberalism and the ways these are imagined
in and through mass-mediated discourses such as films, literary
narratives, and television shows. The course will combine rigorous
theoretical analysis with close textual encounters of the critical
kind. Readings will comprise some combination of liberal theory and
its major critiques, theories of mediated discourse and circulation,
critical analyses of media artifacts, and assessments of the limits
of existing theory and methodologies.

A likely selection of authors might include:

Hannah Arendt, Lauren Berlant, Judith Butler, William Connolly,
Timothy Corrigan, Benjamin DeMott, Jacques Derrida, Lynda Hart,
Bonnie Honig, James Jasinski, Will Kymlicka, Michael Sandel, Adam
Smith, Marita Sturken, Michael Warner, and Slavoj Zizek.

Possible media artifacts to be analyzed include:
The Return of the Secaucus Seven, The Big Chill, Grand Canyon, Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Rich and Famous, Thelma & Louise,
White Men Can’t Jump, Smoke, “Will & Grace,” “Friends, “Sex and the
City.”

Though the final format has not been set, at a minimum the course
will require active participation, extensive reading, several
screenings, in-class presentations, and a final paper.