English 110B-A - Spring, 2013

Introduction to Modern Literary and Critical Theory

Class Information

Instructor: Frederickson, Kathleen
Time: TR 10:30-11:50
Location: 106 Olson

Description

Kathleen Frederickson
110B Introduction to Principles of Criticism

This course will provide students with grounding in some of the foundational concepts in contemporary critical theory, focusing especially on traditions coming out of Marxism, psychoanalysis, semiotics, feminism, and post/anti-colonial studies. We will spend the majority of the term reading key texts in these traditions that will allow us to develop a vocabulary around ideology, recognition, alterity, and power. As the quarter ends, we will turn to texts in contemporary literary and cultural studies that ground themselves in the critical traditions that we have been examining.

Texts:
The majority of the readings for the course will be available in a course reader. The reader will include texts by Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx, Ferdinand de Saussure, Antonio Gramsci, Walter Benjamin, Jacques Lacan, Frantz Fanon, Louis Althusser, Jacques Derrida, Gayatri Spivak, Judith Butler, Fred Moten, Rei Terada, Fredric Jameson, Jodi Dean.

In addition, you will require three books:
Sigmund Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality,
Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth
Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality: Volume I

Grading

Attendance and Participation: 10%
In-class quizzes: 20%
Paper 1: 20%
Paper 2: 30%
Final Exam: 20%

Texts

The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon
The History of Sexuality: Volume I, Michel Foucault
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Sigmund Freud