Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Provides a detailed and contextual overview of critical debates in twentieth-century literary and cultural theory. The critical lineage explored will vary according to theoretical focus.

COURSE DETAILS:

Theory and the University

It has become popular to declare the end of theory.  But what exactly does it mean to talk about the end or death of theory?  What definition of "theory" informs such a formulation?  Or of "ends" and "death"?  As Vincent Leitch suggests, claims of theory's demise are also signs of anxiety about what's to come:  the so-called passing of theory equally reflects wider fears about the role or place of critical thinking within an increasingly corporatized university.  In short, the status of theory in such debates is inseparable from the status or future of the university.  

This course will begin with the current backlash against theory, reading contemporary turns against it for provisional answers to the question of what it is that is perceived to be at an end and why.  From here we will return to the 1980s in order to trace the development of theory from its heyday to the present.  We will be concerned to situate these developments within their social and historical contexts, and to test them against more recent claims regarding their demise.  Readings will broadly be divided by the major developments leading from New Criticism to poststructuralism and postmodernism.  Of particular interest will be some of the more recent theoretical "schools," including but not limited to new historicism, theories of affect, globalization studies and a variety of critical positions characterized as anti-symptomatic in their approach to questions of representation and interpretation. These readings will be read in tandem with current work on the university that addresses the history of the university and the particular transformations and challenges facing universities today, including recent calls to indigenize the university.  

If Benjamin and Adorno are indeed right about the ripeness of decay for critical thinking, we may, in our so-called moment of theory's passing, be perfectly situated to think about our future anew.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: