Topics in Criticism and Theory
ENGLISH 296CT
Subject & Catalog Number
Course Information
Description
This course surveys major works in literary theory and criticism from the high watermark of ‘French Theory’ as it crossed the Atlantic in the 1970s up to the present. Our goal will be twofold: firstly, to grapple with these arguments and methodologies on their own terms and gauge their impact on literary study, with students encouraged to draw on examples from their respective fields. Secondly, to historicize our own reception of ‘theory,’ assessing its present place in scholarship and its possible futures at a time when various contemporary modes of inquiry like, “surface reading,” “new formalism,” and “weak theory,” are all pushing back on this intellectual legacy, forcing us to rethink the limits and aims of critique.
Available for Harvard Cross Registration
