Theory, Culture Society

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

In this course, we will examine significant theoretical texts which focus on subjects of nationalism, orientalism, colonialism, globalization, democracy, liberalism, identity, ideology, race, class, and gender. Spanning across historical moments as well as geographic spaces, we will look at how these topics have been shaped and reshaped in time and in different contexts. Using an interdisciplinary lens, we will begin by reading excerpts from seminal texts by Enlightenment and nineteenth-century thinkers such as Kant, Descartes, Voltaire, Locke, Adam Smith, Rousseau, Marx and Engels. We will then examine selected writings by Foucault, Said, Benedict Anderson, Fanon, and Césaire along with other major 20th- and 21st-century cultural theorists and writers, in particular from the Global South, who have fashioned the way we think about power, culture, politics, and society. We will also ask and answer the all-important question, “Why theory?” by applying what we read to a diverse and varied range of cultural and political (con)texts.