Topics in Literary Theory (493-0-20)
Topic
Materialist/Marxist Theory
Instructors
Scott P Durham
8474914660
1860 S. Campus Drive, Crowe Hall #2-141
Meeting Info
Kresge Centennial Hall 2-430: Tues 5:00PM - 8:00PM
Overview of class
This introductory course on problems in contemporary critical theory will begin by focusing on critique of ideology in the Marxist tradition (with particular attention to Sartre and Jameson's synthesis of the Sartrean, Althusserian and Frankfurt School traditions), along with some of their major predecessors, allies and adversaries, including such thinkers as Eisenstein, Barthes, Bataille and Derrida). We will then discuss how the relationships between discursive, institutional and aesthetic practices and their pragmatic effects are rethought in the writings of such theorists as Foucault, Rancière and Deleuze. While the primary focus of the course will be on theoretical texts, these texts will also be considered in dialogue with literary and cinematic works.