Scribner Seminar Program
Course Description
Desire and Self
Instructor(s): Reg Lilly, Philosophy
What do we mean by the desiring self, the topic of this seminar? Students in this
seminar will examine the nature and different forms of desire and its role in the
constitution of the human subject, as well as the destabilizing force desire exerts
on the self. The figure of Don Juan鈥攐ften presented in literature, opera and film鈥攊ntroduces
the question of the relation of the self to the self, of the self to the other, of
desire to (self-)mastery, of pleasure to pain, and of imagination to reality. Students
will use philosophical, literary and psychological readings as well as films to bring
critical concepts to bear on the phenomena of the desiring self.
Course Offered: