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 European Graduate School — PhD in Communications — Curriculum |
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| Curriculum | Plan of Studies | Tuition/Scholarships | Application |
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Note: Please be advised that all seminars, colloquia and workshops of EGS are conducted at the Campus in Saas-Fee, Wallis, Switzerland.
FREEDOM AND CONTROL: NETWORK THEORY (3 credits)
Investigates the clash between freedom and control in cyberspace and evaluates the liberating impact of the Internet for media, art, and culture.
Hendrik Speck with Vaidhyanathan Siva
MEDIA HISTORY AND STRATEGIES (3 credits)
Explores the history of communication media media, focusing on technological innovations and forms a new understanding of the algorithmic infrastructure of the Internet, and its political, military, economic, and cultural impact.
Friedrich Kittler
CYBEROCRACY: TOMORROW NOW (3 credits)
An intensive dialogue with a prolific writer and one of the leading web theorists, focusing on recent developments in cyberspace and exploring futurist options..
Bruce Sterling
ZERO COMMENTS AND THE BLOGOSPHERE (3 credits)
Provides an overview of the blogosphere, distributed aesthetics, social interaction, web design, and the creative process.
Geert Lovink
SOFTWARE STUDIES (3 credits)
Explores emerging work in sofware studies around the world and researches new ways of using software and cyberinfrastructure for cultural research.
Lev Manovich
TECHNOLOGIES OF THE BODY (3 credits)
Reviews prior and current work in theory and practices of the political economy of the body in dialogue with technology, nature, art, and the collapse of those categories into the disruptive and oppositional construct we will call the technobody.
Allucquére Rosanne Stone
RESEARCH METHODS (1 credit workshop)
Introduction to basic research styles such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, dialectics, deconstruction in preparation for EGS dissertation projects.
Wolfgang Schirmacher
ELECTIVE SEMINARS:
WORKSHOP WITH PAUL VIRILIO (2 credits)
An in-depth discussion with the philosopher of technology and political theorist who is one of the most influential critics of contemporary life. Moderated by Hubertus von Amelunxen — a French-English workshop for enrolled students and graduates.
Paul Virilio | Hubertus von Amelunxen
CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP (1 credit)
From scriptwriting and novels to philosophical prose and poetry, diverse forms of language needed for media are presented and discussed.
Shelley Jackson
ACADEMIC WRITING (1 credit workshop)
With focus on the development of productive thesis statements and the organization and composition of coherent argumentation in order to prepare students to begin their dissertations.
Mark Daniel Cohen
HAUNTED THOUGHT AND ART (3 credits)
A critical analysis of the accidental structure and underworld happening involved in literature, performance and video art. An invited artist demonstrates the transformative processes involved.
Larry Rickels with Diana Thater
ART, PSYCHOANALYSIS, PHILOSOPHY: THE MATRIXIAL BORDERSPACE (3 credits)
Aesthetic practice as rethinking ethics, in a feminist dialogue with Levinas, Lyotard, Lacan, Deleuze and Guattari; enabling a dimension of emergence which underlies trauma, memory, representation and post-Lacanian subjectivity.
Bracha Ettinger
JEAN BAUDRILLARD (3 credits)
A tribute to the EGS faculty member who recently passed away: An examination of Baudrillard's philosophical legacy and his impact on the critique of contemporary culture.
Sylvere Lotringer
MEDIA CULTURE & ARTIFICIAL LIFE (3 credits)
Explores media culture as post-technological event (ereignis), a demonstration for art of living authentically (geviert), ethical dasein beyond metaphysics (gelassenheit).
Wolfgang Schirmacher
JEAN-FRANCOIS LYOTARD: HESITATING THOUGHT (3 credits)
An introduction to select major works by Lyotard, with a focus on the status of little narratives (vs. the grand narrative) and of the pagus (vs. differend).
Victor J. Vitanza
PERFORMATIVE PHILOSOPHY (3 credits)
Presents her own video work, film, writing, and performance art as phenomenological revealing of abjection, wild objects, and chance events.
Chris Kraus
PhD FORUM (1 credit workshop)
A forum for presenting the basic thesis of one's own dissertation (project) for immediate feed-back and constructive advice.
Wolfgang Schirmacher (and Faculty Members)
ELECTIVE SEMINARS:
WORKSHOP WITH PAUL VIRILIO (2 credits)
An in-depth discussion with the philosopher of technology and political theorist who is one of the most influential critics of contemporary life. Moderated by Hubertus von Amelunxen — a French-English workshop for enrolled students and graduates.
Paul Virilio | Hubertus von Amelunxen
CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP (1 credit)
From scriptwriting and novels to philosophical prose and poetry, diverse forms of language needed for media are presented and discussed.
Shelley Jackson
RESEARCH FOR DISSERTATIONS (1 credit workshop)
Discussing projects for PhD dissertations in order to find connections to philosophical works and locate directions for theoretical research.
Michael Anker
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FROM SCRIPT TO SCREEN (3 credits)
The dynamics of form and space emerge from rich, dense and humorous details — an exercise in cinematic poetry. How the written word transforms into moving images evoking an aesthetics of the Minimal.
Pierre Alferi
GILLES DELEUZE: SCIENCE & HISTORY (3 credits)
Introduces Deleuze by using examples are from economic, linguistic, military history s well as physics, mathematics, and biology. The virtuality-actuality of a realistic ontology and a materialistic ethics is explored.
Manuel DeLanda
LITERARY CINEMA (3 credits)
Demonstrating the transformation of literary texts — of authors diverse as
Günther Grass, Heinrich Böll, Marcel Proust, Michel Tournier, Margaret
Atkins — into cinematic art.
Volker Schlöndorff
NIETZSCHE AND 20th CENTURY THOUGHT (3 credits)
Examines how aesthetics, epistemology, communication, and ethics have been radically changed by Nietzsche's critique of the unity of the subject, the representational logic of language, and the metaphysics of truth.
Fred Ulfers
CINEMA AS CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY (3 credits)
Examines contemporary filmmaking as exploration into multi-ethnic and cross-cultural environments, with the cool passion and distanced engagement of an anthropologist.
Claire Denis
MEDIA AND THE UNCANNY (3 credits)
Explores the philosophical concept of the uncanny as it bears on the media by reading Freud, Heidegger, and Derrida.
Samuel Weber
RESEARCH METHODS (1 credit workshop)
Introduction to basic research styles such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, dialectics, deconstruction in preparation for EGS dissertation projects.
Wolfgang Schirmacher
ELECTIVE SEMINARS:
WORKSHOP WITH PAUL VIRILIO (2 credits)
An in-depth discussion with the philosopher of technology and political theorist who is one of the most influential critics of contemporary life. Moderated by Hubertus von Amelunxen — a French-English workshop for enrolled students and graduates.
Paul Virilio | Hubertus von Amelunxen
CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP (1 credit)
From scriptwriting and novels to philosophical prose and poetry, diverse forms of language needed for media are presented and discussed.
Shelley Jackson
ACADEMIC WRITING (1 credit workshop)
With focus on the development of productive thesis statements and the organization and composition of coherent argumentation in order to prepare students to begin their dissertations.
Mark Daniel Cohen
POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY (3 credits)
Explores nearness and distance between poetry and philosophy: Michel Foucault, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jacques Derrida in dialogue with Paul Celan. Includes a workshop with a major German poet.
Martin Hielscher with Ian McEwan (final confirmation pending)
EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA (3 credits)
Recovering the missing histories of lesbians, bisexuals and gays in Western culture and addressing political as well as ethical-aesthetical challenges by pioneering an essay documentary style.
Barbara Hammer
MEDIA SOUNDS (3 credits)
Explores the clashes and resonances between multiple styles and cultural approaches to music—from classical composition to rap, hip-hop and avant-garde sound collage.
Michael Schmidt | DJ Spooky
PHILOSOPHY OF PHOTOGRAPHY & FILM (3 credits)
Explores issues of meaning and representation, the interface of photography, video, and film, and the terror of the body in digital space (with emphasis on Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin and Vilem Flusser).
Hubertus von Amelunxen
ART, COMMUNITY AND FREEDOM (3 credits)
Deconstructs the body, the communitary experience as well as the notion of freedom within the context of art and literature, myth and Christianity.
Jean-Luc Nancy
ADVANCED MEDIA PHILOSOPHY (3 credits)
Jean-François Lyotard's thoughts on the sublime, Gilles Deleuze's rehabilitation of the Monad, Emmanuel Levinas' ethics of the Other, Avital Ronell's test drive are critically applied to a non-metaphysical media philosophy, a life technique of Homo generator.
Wolfgang Schirmacher
PhD FORUM (1 credit workshop)
A forum for presenting the basic thesis of one's own dissertation (project) for immediate feed-back and constructive advice.
Wolfgang Schirmacher (and Faculty Members)
ELECTIVE SEMINARS:
WORKSHOP WITH PAUL VIRILIO (2 credits)
An in-depth discussion with the philosopher of technology and political theorist who is one of the most influential critics of contemporary life. Moderated by Hubertus von Amelunxen — a French-English workshop for enrolled students and graduates.
Paul Virilio | Hubertus von Amelunxen
CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP (1 credit)
From scriptwriting and novels to philosophical prose and poetry, diverse forms of language needed for media are presented and discussed.
Shelley Jackson
RESEARCH FOR DISSERTATIONS (1 credit workshop)
Discussing projects for PhD dissertations in order to find connections to philosophical works and locate directions for theoretical research.
Michael Anker
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JACQUES DERRIDA (3 credits)
A tribute to the EGS philosopher which presents and discusses deconstruction as well as the key issues of his work.
Diane Davis
POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY (3 credits)
The complex relationship between poetry and philosophy and the notion of poetry as a thought will be explored in a cordial dialogue with an internationally recognized poet. Alessandro de Francesco, Michel Deguy, Yang Lian, Jan Zwicky, Jacques Roubaud have participated previously.
Judith Balso
HEIDEGGER: PHILOSOPHY AND ART (3 credits)
Explores the future potential of one of Europe's most influential 20th century philosophers and addresses divergent practices of thought and art in post-Heideggerian thinkers.
Chris Fynsk
EXTERIORITY: BLANCHOT (3 credits)
Explores 'exteriority', the radical Other, in its un/relation to literature, history, and ethics through a close reading of Maurice Blanchot.
Werner Hamacher
AUDIOVISUAL HISTORY AND TECHNOCULTURE (3 credits)
Surveys the history of mediations through which ideas and visual representation have become a material force. It enables an archeology of hearing and seeing by technical means.
Siegfried Zielinski
CINEMA FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM (3 credits)
A departure from the disenchantment with contemporary cinema which offers alternatives by considering a hybrid of cinematic art and new media environments. This approach simultaneously realizes a visual language independent of storytelling and identification.
Peter Greenaway
FOUNDATION IN MEDIA PHILOSOPHY (3-credit workshop)
Introduces and explores the critical differences as well as productive blending of Communication Theory and Continental Philosophy which culminates in 'Media Philosophy'.
Wolfgang Schirmacher
RESEARCH METHODS (1 credit workshop)
Introduction to basic research styles such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, dialectics, deconstruction in preparation for EGS dissertation projects.
Wolfgang Schirmacher
ELECTIVE SEMINAR:
ACADEMIC WRITING (1 credit workshop)
With focus on the development of productive thesis statements and the organization and composition of coherent argumentation in order to prepare students to begin their dissertations.
Mark Daniel Cohen
ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP (1 credit)
Photography as non-representational language will be demonstrated and explored. Students have the opportunity to discuss their own work with an renowed French photographer.
Suzanne Doppelt
HOMO SACER (3 credits)
A questioning of how radical subjectivity and the coming community can contribute to a paradigm of human existence.
Giorgio Agamben
PHILOSOPHY, ETHICS, ART (3 credits)
In defense of systematic philosophy and in a critical dialogue with Gilles Deleuze basic issues such as the ethic of truths, politics, and art are rediscovered.
Alain Badiou
FINITUDE IN PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE AND ART (3 credits)
Explores the finitude of language and the singularity of the ethical event in a culture of absence, disappearance, and escape in relation to memory, fiction, and the human.
Avital Ronell
MEDIA AESTHETICS (3 credits)
Lyotard's thoughts on the sublime, Deleuze's rehabilitation of the monad, and Levinas' ethics of the other contribute to the media aesthetics of Homo generator.
Wolfgang Schirmacher
MEDIA, POLITICS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS (3 credits)
Links key psychoanalytical and philosophical concepts to social phenomena such as pop culture and political fantasies; a Lacanian reading with emphasis on the metastases of enjoyment and imagination.
Slavoj Zizek
CINEMA OF RESISTANCE (3 credits)
The layered, irreverent and hilarious films of the Palestinian filmmaker articulate a poetics of resistance; his subversive-personal interventions avoid the myths of politics.
Elia Suleiman
PhD FORUM (1 credit workshop)
A forum for presenting the basic thesis of one's own dissertation (project) for immediate feed-back and constructive advice.
Wolfgang Schirmacher (and Faculty Members)
ELECTIVE SEMINAR:
RESEARCH FOR DISSERTATIONS (1 credit workshop)
Discussing projects for PhD dissertations in order to find connections to philosophical works and locate directions for theoretical research.
Michael Anker
ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP (1 credit)
Photography as non-representational language will be demonstrated and explored. Students have the opportunity to discuss their own work with an renowed French photographer.
Suzanne Doppelt
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POLITICAL ACTIVISM: MULTIPLICITY & EMPIRE (3 credits)
A Deleuzian approach to power and social change in the world of globalization. New networks of communication and control necessitate a radical shift in the basis of politics; the “Empire” manifesto as alternative political paradigm for a global society will be discussed.
Michael Hardt
MEDIA ART (3 credits)
Introduces Roland Barthes as well as contemporary art theories and provides a forum for a renowned artist to discuss the interdependencies of visual art with other media and film. Pierre Huyge, Sophie Calle, and Martha Rosler have been participants in this seminar.
Yve-Alain Bois
ETHICS AND POLITICS AFTER THE SUBJECT (3 credits)
Addresses theories of the subject and explores issues of gender politics, subversion of identity, power, ethical violence.
Judith Butler
POLITICS OF AESTHETICS (3 credits)
A rethinking of the relationship between art and politics and the peculiarity of the aesthetic experience as a form of life. Emphasis on modern cinema and the future of the image.
Jacques Ranciere
ANIMATED FILM (3 credits)
Animated objects and puppets come to life in the short films of the most ingenious and wildly creative film directors with a dark and ironic vision.
The Brothers Quay
GEOPOLITICS IN CINEMA (3 credits)
A rethinking of the planetary impact of media such as cinema as a challenge to political thought.
Michael J.Shapiro
RESEARCH METHODS (1 credit workshop)
Introduction to basic research styles such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, dialectics, deconstruction in preparation for EGS dissertation projects.
Wolfgang Schirmacher
ELECTIVE SEMINAR:
ACADEMIC WRITING (1 credit workshop)
With focus on the development of productive thesis statements and the organization and composition of coherent argumentation in order to prepare students to begin their dissertations.
Mark Daniel Cohen
ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP (1 credit)
Photography as non-representational language will be demonstrated and explored. Students have the opportunity to discuss their own work with an renowed French photographer.
Suzanne Doppelt
FILM ART & CINEMATIC LANGUAGES (3 credits)
Approaches film as a discovery process in which alienation, absurdity, exploitation, isolation are conducive to the development of cinematic languages. The Canadian filmmaker emphasizes the philosophy,
psychology and sociology of the experience of cinema.
Atom Egoyan
SCULPTURE AS PHYSICAL COMMUNICATION (3 credits)
An artist of style-setting repute demonstrates the creative processes involved in sculpture in the age of media.
Antony Gormley
EUROPEAN FILMMAKERS: SEXUALITY AS CINEMATIC SUBJECT (2 credits)
Through self-revealing films sexuality is shown to be a subject, not an object, and a provocative feminist gaze is developed.
Catherine Breillat
AT THE INTERFACE OF NATURE AND CULTURE (3 credits)
Explores cyborgs, forests, dogs, and transgenics as entities emerging at the nexus of culture, nature, genders, races, and knowledge styles.
Donna Haraway
ISSUES IN ELECTRACY (3 credits)
Studies the shift from traditional literacy to electronic languages and advocates the conductive use of the Internet for public consulting work.
Gregory Ulmer
SCHOPENHAUER: LIVING WISDOM (3 credits)
A new reading of the German philosopher and his radical turn from spirit to body which influenced Nietzsche, Freud, Wittgenstein, The Frankfurt School but also musicians such as Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss as well as writers such as Samuel Beckett , Andre Gide and Jorge Louis Borges.
Wolfgang Schirmacher
PhD FORUM (1 credit workshop)
A forum for presenting the basic thesis of one's own dissertation (project) for immediate feed-back and constructive advice.
Wolfgang Schirmacher (and Faculty Members)
ELECTIVE SEMINAR:
RESEARCH FOR DISSERTATIONS (1 credit workshop)
Discussing projects for PhD dissertations in order to find connections to philosophical works and locate directions for theoretical research.
Michael Anker
ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP (1 credit)
Photography as non-representational language will be demonstrated and explored. Students have the opportunity to discuss their own work with an renowed French photographer.
Suzanne Doppelt
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PhD Colloquium I (4 credits)
For third year students, presenting the material found and the outline of one's dissertation project.
Wolfgang Schirmacher (and faculty members)
PhD Colloquium II (4 credits)
For fourth year students: explaining the status of the dissertation and defending the main thesis.
Wolfgang Schirmacher (and faculty members)
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