| U2 happens to sum up pretty well a pervasive sense of crisis that currently surrounds the idea of literary or cultural "work" as well as the theoretical inquiries it has occasioned. This course is designed to provide a familiarity with some defining issues, key thinkers, and theoretical texts that have shaped the critical investigation of literature and literariness in the quarter century since the publication of Michel Foucault's Order of Things (1966) and Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology (1967). |
 | In this course we shall encounter some of the texts and vocabularies of such thinkers as Roland Barthes, Homi Bhabha, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, Terry Eagleton, Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, Judith Butler, Fredric Jameson, Edward Said, and Gayatri Spivak.
We shall also examine some of the major trends in late twentieth-century literary theory: feminism, structuralism, post- structuralism, deconstruction, new historicism, Marxist criticism, postcolonial theory, psychoanalytic criticism, cultural studies and queer theory.
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We shall attempt to understand why critical thinking has witnessed the progressive problematization and critique of all conceptual and foundational vocabularies, including such indispensable terms as "text," "sign" "writing" "meaning" "identity" "representation" "subjectivity" "self" "other" and also, why literary studies has been bedeviled by these inquiries. In addition to becoming familiar with the influential theorists and critical genealogies of the late twentieth century, we shall also try to interrogate the distinctive pathos of theory. |
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This course does not assume any prior knowledge with any of the authors or texts mentioned above; however, those of you familiar with the writings of some of these figures will know that this is not a course for the faint-hearted. The readings are difficult and demand close and careful reading, but if you're looking for a challenge....
The course will require active class participation, and three papers during the semester (5-8 pages).
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