Noam Chomsky: The Drama of Resistance

This seminar focuses on the ideas and analysis of Noam Chomsky, Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT, and a dedicated activist who has spent his life challenging the reigning political and economic paradigms by which the United States is ruled. After discussing his revolutionary model for linguistics (concentrating on the possible link between language and freedom), we will address Chomsky's work on U.S. foreign policy (in Southeast Asia, Indonesia and East Timor, Central America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East); the media ("manufacturing consent"); "terrorism"; ideology and culture; student/popular movements; the "new world order" (at home and abroad); and the importance of resistance. Chomsky's work will provide a useful mode of analysis as students explore their own ways of understanding and challenging the political, economic, and social forces that shape our lives. This seminar would best suit students who have an interest in current events and a desire to make future current events more humane.