Modern Critical Theory Lecture Series

The Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory offers a series of public lectures on the history of critical theory every fall semester. These lectures, each of which will be followed by open discussion, will take place on Tuesdays from 5:15-6:45pm in-person. The lectures are coordinated with graduate seminars on critical theory in a number of departments, but are also open to other faculty or graduate students who may wish to attend.

For participants not enrolled in one of the affiliated courses, see the Box folder of corresponding readings for each lecture. For more information, including the password to access the readings, please contact Ashli Anda, or Taisuke Wakabayashi.

 

Modern Critical Theory Reading List 2022

 

9/13 Antoinette Burton “Gender History: A Very Short Introduction” (History, UIUC)

Greg Hall 213

Required Readings

  • Joan Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” The American Historical Review 91, 5 (1986).
  • Kimberlé Crenshaw, "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics," University of Chicago Legal Forum 1, Article 8 (1989) and/or her 2016 video,  “The Urgency of Intersectionality” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akOe5-UsQ2o
  • Afsaneh Najmabadi,  Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards (2005),  intro and chapter 2
  • Tadashi Dozono, “Teaching Alternative and Indigenous Gender Systems in World History: A Queer Approach,” The History Teacher 50,3 (2017)
  • Susan Stryker, “(De)Subjugated Knowledges: An Introduction to Transgender Studies” in her edited collection, The Transgender Studies Reader (2006)
  • Howard Chiang, “Imagining Transgender China,” in Transgender China (2012)
  • Judith Butler, “Reflections on Gender Trouble Thirty Years Later: Reply to Hershatter, Loos, and Patel,” The Journal of Asian Studies 79, 4 (2020)

 

 

9/20 David Wilson “The Advanced Capitalist City: Conceptual Innovations” (Geography & GIS, UIUC)

Greg Hall 319

Required Readings

  • Cugurullo, F. (2018). Exposing smart cities and eco-cities: Frankenstein urbanism and the sustainability challenges of the experimental city. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 50(1), 73-92. 
  • Simone, A. (2004). People as infrastructure: Intersecting fragments in Johannesburg. Public culture, 16(3), 407-429.
  • Wilson, D., & Heil, M. (2022). Decline machines and economic development: rust belt cities and Flint, Michigan. Urban Geography, 43(2), 163-183.

 

 

9/27 Rosalyn LaPier “Environmental Studies: Land as Text”

Greg Hall 213

Required Readings

  • Basso, Keith H. “‘Speaking with Names’: Language and Landscape among the Western Apache.” Cultural Anthropology 3, no. 2 (1988): 99–130. http://www.jstor.org/stable/656347.
  • Oliveira, Katrina-Ann R. Kapā’AnaokalāOkeola NāKoa. “Wahi a Kahiko: Place Names as Vehicles of Ancestral Memory.” AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples 5, no. 2 (December 2009): 100–115. https://doi.org/10.1177/117718010900500206.
  • Reuben Rose-Redwood, Natchee Blu Barnd, Annita Hetoevėhotohke’e Lucchesi, Sharon Dias, and Wil Patrick, "Decolonizing the Map: Recentering Indigenous Mappings," Cartographica: The International Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization 2020 55:3, 151-162 https://doi.org/10.3138/cart.53.3.intro

 

Supplemental Readings

  • Basso, Keith H. Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache, University of New Mexico Press, 1996.
  • Nabokov, Peter. Where the Lightning Strikes: The Lives of American Indian Sacred Places, Penguin, 2007.
  • In the Light of Reverence, Sacred Land Films, 2001.

 

 

10/11 Cameron McCarthy “The Postcolonial Imagination: Tools of Conviviality” (Education, UIUC)

Greg Hall 319

Required Readings

  • Spivak, G. (1997). Three women’s texts and a critique of imperialism.  In, C. McCarthy et al. Race, Identity and Representation in Education (pp. 193-207). New York: Routledge.   
  • Hall, S. (2001). Museums of Modern Art and the End of History. In,  McCarthy, C.  et al. Spaces of New Colonialism: Reading Schools, Museums, and Cities in the Tumult of Globalization (pp. 285-294). 

 

Supplemental Readings

  • Goel, K.M. & McCarthy, C. (2020). Colonial Pasts and Global Presence in Citadels of Education: Crafting “World-Class” Futures by Digitalizing Traditions . In,  McCarthy, C.  et al. Spaces of New Colonialism: Reading Schools, Museums, and Cities in the Tumult of Globalization (pp. 211-239). 
  • Bhabha, H. (2004). Signs taken for wonders.  The Location of Culture (pp. 102-122). 

 

 

 

10/18 Amy Allen “Rosa Luxemburg and Marxism” (Philosophy, Penn State)

This lecture is on Zoom. Registration is required!

Required Readings

 

 

10/25 Rubén Gaztambide-Fernandez "The Pedagogies of Solidarity" (CTL, University of Toronto)

Greg Hall 213

Required Readings

  • Sarah Ahmed, 2000, Strange Encounters, Chapter 7, Ethical Encounters: The other, others, and strangers.
  • Lilie Chouliaraki, 2013, The Ironic Spectator, Chapter 7, Theatricality, Irony, Solidarity
  • Lisa Lowe, 2015, The Intimacies of Four Continents, Chapter 1 (The Intimacies of Four Continents) and/or Chapter 5, (Freedoms Yet to Come).
  • Sherene H. Razack (2007) Stealing the Pain of Others: Reflections on Canadian Humanitarian Responses, The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 29:4, 375-394

 

 

 

11/1 Zsuzsa Gille "The Materiality Turn" (Sociology, UIUC)

Greg Hall 213

Required Readings

  • Bennett, Jane. 2004. “The Force of Things: Steps Towards an Ecology of Matter.” Political Theory. 32:347-72.
  • M’Charek, Amade. 2013. “Beyond fact or fiction: on the materiality of race in practice.” Cultural Anthropology. 28(3):420–442.
  • Mitchell, Timothy. 2002. “Can a Mosquito Speak?” In: Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. University of California Press.
  • Mukerji, Chandra. 2010. “The Territorial State as a Figured World of Power: Strategics, Logistics, and Impersonal Rule.” Sociological Theory. 28(4): 402-424.
  • Noortje Marres & Javier Lezaun. 2011. “Materials and devices of the public: an introduction. Economy and Society, 40:4, 489-509. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2011.602293

 

 

11/15 Lisa Rosenthal “Feminism and the Visual Image: The Dynamics of Representation” (Art History, UIUC)

Greg Hall 319

Required Readings

  • Contemporary Comments on Seventeenth-Century Dutch (Painting) Source: Eric Jan Sluijter, Seductress of Sight (Waanders, Zwolle: 2000) pp. 9-14.
  • Edwards Snow, "Theorizing the Male Gaze: Some Problems," Representations 25 (1989) pp. 30-41
  • Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Screen 16:3 (1975) pp. 6-18.
  • Griselda Pollock, Differencing the Canon: Feminist Desire and the Writing of Art’s Histories (Routledge, 1999) pp. 23-38.
  • Jacqueline Lichtenstein, “Making Up Representation: The Risks of Femininity,” Representations 20 (1987) pp. 77-87.  

 

 

11/29 Tamara Chaplin “Queering French History” (History, UIUC)

Greg Hall 213

Required Readings

  • Doan, Laura. Chapter 1 “An Uncommon Project, The Discipline Problem Reconsidered,” and Chapter 2, “Genealogy Inside and Out,” in Disturbing Practices: History, Sexuality, and Women’s Experience of Modern War (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013), pp.27-57 and pp.58-93.=
  • Duggan, Lisa, “The Discipline Problem: Queer Theory meets Lesbian and Gay History,” GLQ,  Vol. 2, (1995), pp. 179-191.
  • Faderman, Lillian, “Who Hid Lesbian History?” Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3, Lesbian History (Autumn, 1979), pp.74-76.
  • Vicinus, Martha. “The History of Lesbian History,” Feminist Studies, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Fall 2012), pp. 566-596.

 

Supplemental Readings

  • Abelove, Henry.  “The Queering of Lesbian/Gay History,” Radical History Review 62 (Spring 1995): 45-57.
  • Bennett, Judith M. “‘Lesbian-Like’ and the Social History of Lesbianisms,” Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 9, No. ½ (January-April, 2000), pp.1-24.
  • Garber, Linda. “Where in the World Are the Lesbians,” Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol 14. Nos. 12 January 2005/ April 2005 pp. 28-50.