Studies in Literary Criticism
Intensive study of specific topics in the field of literary criticism and theory.
Outcomes: Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of significant works in the designated field, and will be able to discuss relevant theoretical and critical perspectives.
Intensive study of specific topics in the field of literary criticism and theory.
Outcomes: Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of significant works in the designated field, and will be able to discuss relevant theoretical and critical perspectives.
Pre-requisites: UCWR 110 and one 200-level English course.
This is a multicultural class.
Studies in Literary Criticism: Rethinking ¿Theory,¿
Within the academy, the word ¿theory¿ has a lot of capital¿. As a student of theory, I learned that theory is used to refer to a rather narrow body of work. Some work becomes theory because it refers to other work that is known as theory. A citational chain is created around theory: you become a theorist by citing other theorists that cite other theorists. Some of this work did interest me, but I kept finding that I wanted to challenge the selection of materials as well as how they were read. - Sarah Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life (2017)
Literary Theory is both lauded and criticized for its specialized jargon and conceptual difficulty, but what logics underlie theoretical writing itself? This course will approach theory as a genre of literature, highlighting works of theory written in unexpected forms like poetry, graphic novels, memoirs, manifestos, performances, and even coloring books. We will consider how these works that fall outside conventional ¿criticism¿ use language, form, and space to develop formalist, deconstructive, feminist, psychoanalytic, queer, critical race, disability, ecocritical, posthumanist, and Marxist theories. Authors studied will include Gloria Anzaldúa, Alison Bechdel, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Joshua Bennett. Assignments will include three exams, a final project, and regular journaling.
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