Topics in Literary Theory (493-0-20)

Topic

The Social and Historical Construction of Gender a

Instructors

Scott Durham
8474914660
1860 S. Campus Drive, Crowe Hall #2-141

Meeting Info

Kresge Centennial Hall 3-410: Tues 2:00PM - 4:50PM

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.

Class Materials (Required)

Texts available at Norris:
Balzac, History of the Thirteen; Histoire des Treize
Deleuze/Guattari, Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature (Kafka: vers une littérature mineure)
Foucault, Discipline and Punish (Surveiller et punir)
Jameson, The Geopolitical Aesthetic
Other texts will be available through the Library Reserve link on Canvas or from the Department.