What is “theory”? What do we do with it? How does theory allow us to see our objects of study differently, or even to formulate new objects of inquiry? This course provides an advanced introduction to a wide range of critical theories and schools of thought for the analysis of literary and cultural objects. The course proposes a long-term approach from the early twentieth century to the present, covering foundational paradigms as well as the more recent turns, including: New Criticism, Formalism, Marxism, Post-Structuralism, Feminism, Gender Studies and Queer Theory, Post-Colonial Theory, Black Studies, Latin American Cultural Studies, Disability Studies, and Media Theory. The course places particular emphasis on theoretical discourses and practices that emerge from Latin America and Spain, allowing us to interrogate how they have adopted, challenged, and reshaped theories developed elsewhere. We will not approach the history of theory as a linear progression from one paradigm to the following one, or as the formation of a coherent and articulated corpus of knowledge. Instead, we will interrogate the historical conditions that made certain theoretical interventions possible and relevant —both within their own contexts and beyond—as well as the limits and blind spots of those interventions. Taught in English.
CRN: 72891
Tuesday 02:00 - 04:50 PM; 132 Davenport Hall
Instructor: Rodrigo Viqueira
Course image credit: Lygia Clark. Óculos (Goggles). 1968