3.00 Credits
08F: 12 09F: 2A Covering some of the major theoretical movements of the second half of the twentieth century, this course focuses on the issues and questions motivating theoretical debate in literary and cultural studies. Movements studied may include New Criticism, structuralism, semiotics, poststructuralism and deconstruction, Marxist criticism, psychoanalysis, narratology, reader-response theory, feminist criticism, African American criticism, film criticism, and the new historicism. In 08F, What is Theory Since the beginnings of the 20th Century, critical theory has slowly transformed the study of literature. Although most scholars who study literary texts now use theory in one way or another, few would be able to define the discipline. This course will examine some of the major texts in the field, including the roots of contemporary critical practices in philosophy, linguistics, and semiotics, as well as some of the latest, "cutting edge" applications of theory to all kinds of cultural "objects": texts, films, clothes, bodies, genders, identities, buildings, cities, nations, etc. Works by Saussure, Jakobson, Foucault, Lacan, Benjamin, Derrida, Hegel, Butler, Venturi, Kohlhaas and others. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. LaGuardiIn 09F, Author, Reader, Text. An introduction to literary and critical theory through explorations of the author function, the nature of texts, and the role of readers. Schools of literary theory will be reviewed, but structure the class. Critics to be read include Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Wolfgang Iser, Gayatri Spivak, and Susan Winnett.Creators of literature include: Italo Calvino, Henry James, Jeanette Winterson. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Kacandes.