WS22/23

 ‘Vertiefung Gesellschaftsanalyse’ seminar (06371300 L 40) starting on Friday, Dec. 9 at 2PM in room FH 311.

This year’s seminar focuses on ‘Aloneness and the Spectre of Isolation’. 

Is aloneness restricted to a burden to be taken care of, or can it also be regarded as a constructive and beneficial kind of social relationship and personal experience? Current attention in neuroscience, politics, and media favours an individualistic interpretation of aloneness that ignores its historical specificity and skims over wider societal dynamics. Yet, for sociology aloneness is socially structured, and acknowledging this dimension sharpens the problem of human agency in ways that advance our conception of knowledge, choice, and social action. This course will consider the work of sociologists and critical intellectuals in understanding ‘the spectre of isolation’ to articulate how people can respond in a neoliberal age of environmental crises, viral pandemics, and growing inequality. We will examine a varied selection of core texts grounded in central theoretical issues – the disruption of selfhood, exclusionary discourses and practices, enforced confinement and escapism, as well as the phenomenon of eccentricity within social life and the possibility of choice. We will also discuss a diversity of lesser-known thinkers whose contributions complement each other and continue to illuminate the phenomenon of aloneness today.

This course introduces students to an interdisciplinary, conceptually innovative, and comprehensive analysis of social life and its singular experiences. Our primary goal is to promote critical and independent thinking about a problem of historical and contemporary relevance that intersects with issues of race, ethnic, and gender inequalities, sexual (dis)orientations, social psychology, and communication and media. In this regard, this course aims at developing students’ general knowledge of various methodological and theoretical approaches to sociology.

Dr. Simon Lafontaine

Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow 
Institut für Soziologie

Research Associate
Collaborative Research Centre “Re-Figuration of Spaces”