What came after Alexandre Kojève’s philosophy of the end of history? This seminar will contribute to the debate about how Deleuze and Foucault are indebted to this understudied Russian-French philosopher. Kojève’s lectures on Hegel after World War II in Paris were in conversation with and an influence on the work of Merleau-Ponty and Bataille, and out of these lectures, Kojève formulated his thoughts on the end of history. This seminar will take as its point of departure the exhibition in the James Gallery. We will discuss Kojève’s collection of travel photographs and what they tell us about his worldview as he traveled the globe in the 1960s. The seminar will focus on Kojève’s lecture series on Hegel, compiled as Introductions to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit (1947). See below for reading selection.
