Critical Theory in English Studies

3 Credits

Examines our assumptions about literature, language, media, and culture by exploring how people have theorized key concepts and relations like language, materiality, meaning, representation, identity, and power. We will focus both on learning the history, arguments, and vocabularies of these theories and on evaluating their usefulness for helping us to understand the many kinds of texts (visual, aural, etc.) we study in English. Theoretical thinking will aid us in analyzing the forms texts take; the ideas texts record, challenge, or reinvent; and how texts make us think or feel about ourselves, others, and the world in which we live.