https://at-ceu.studyguide.timeedit.net/modules/DSPS6114?type=COREJust as in the mirror of a horrific nightA man is possessed and does not wantTo recognise himself,Along the legendary embankmentThe real - not the calendar -Twentieth Century draws near......................................................... And behind it will enter a man,He will not be a beloved husband to meBut what we accomplish, he and I,Will disturb the Twentieth Century.Anna Akhmatova, Poem Without A HeroThe course explores one question: What is the relation between (international) politics, truth-telling and the condition often defined as 'postfoundationalism.' It does so through close reading of three book-length texts. The first defines and examines postfoundationalism in its relation to the political. The second discusses the meaning of post-truth and truth-telling in politics. The third provides a dramatic empirical case of truth-telling which was politically divisive in its time (almost a century ago) and its place (Stalinist Soviet Union) and remains to be divisive today in Putinist Russia. What makes this course different from many others (apart from its focus on close reading of longer arguments) is that, instead of focussing on the detection or combatting of falsehoods characteristic of the post-truth political discourse, it focusses on the activity of truth-telling. This assumes that even under the conditions of postfoundationalism, political discourse should not be reduced to a collection of opinions and a search for compromises and consensus, but should also involve a notion of truth. At the same time, this notion of truth cannot be reduced in politics to empirically given facts (or facts-checking). Consequently, the question of truth in politics requires an approach which is closer to political theory than the neoempiricism of current fascination with methodology.