What does it mean to overcome? Are we made stronger by surviving adversity? Are we made empathetic through a first-hand experience with challenge? Do we demonstrate resilience from managing hardships? Is there a synthesis of existing contradictions? Is there a redemption from past shortcomings? Is there a fulfillment of unrealized potential? These and related questions draw our attention to the political importance of overcoming as a personal or collective project: there is some sort of power manifest in pushing beyond what otherwise might have held us back. In this course, we will read a variety of material dealing with politics, philosophy, literature, psychology, sociology, history, etc., and ask ourselves what various materials might tell us about overcoming, what is overcome, what happens as a result of overcoming, etc. Themes may include the dialectic, repression, translation, authority, expression, exclusion, and, perhaps, pandemic.
