University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester
CO3 3EB
Reino Unido
Jason Glynos, University of Essex & Yannis Stavrakakis, Aristotle University
2 week course / 35 hours (Please note: This course will be run in person)
This course introduces the basic concepts of poststructuralist discourse theory, understood as a distinctive, qualitative approach to critical empirical research that takes discourse and meaning seriously.
Building on the work of Laclau and Mouffe, Foucault, Freud, Lacan, and Zizek, the main aim of the course is to address how to ‘apply’ discourse theory to empirical phenomena in the name of understanding, explanation, and critique in general terms and also in relation to the research projects of course participants.
The course outlines conceptual frameworks that can be employed in the analysis of concrete discourses and practices and serves as a forum to discuss research strategies and methodologies that are consonant with the field of discourse theory.
Using illustrations from organization and media studies, and the study of policy discourses, populist movements, and more besides, a range of concepts and themes are examined, including discourse, hegemony and antagonism, politics and dislocation, subjectivity, fantasy and ideology, democracy, and populism.
The course uses case examples to illustrate broad methodological and theoretical points, from general considerations regarding qualitative methods appropriate to poststructuralist discourse theory, to more focused considerations of rhetorical, ethnographic, participatory, and psycho-social dimensions of research, including the place and role of the analyst in the process of research.
As part of this course participants are invited to present their own research topics and proposals.