Professor Hina Nazar

Mon, 12:30 - 02:50PM

This course provides an overview of some of the most important schools of criticism and theory that have shaped the academic study of literature since the 1940s.  These include foundational schools such the New Criticism, Marxism, feminism, postcolonial studies, queer theory, and critical race studies, as well as recent formations such as the digital humanities, medical humanities, legal humanities, environmental humanities, etc.  Some questions we will encounter over the course of the semester include: What gives literature its specificity?  What kind of biographical and historical context is needed to understand a literary work?  Is literature an agent of social and political change?  How is agency figured in literary texts?  In literary theory?  How should we interpret interdisciplinarity in the humanities?  Do literature departments have a future in the corporate university?  While one aim of the course is to introduce you to the theoretical perspectives and debates that have shaped scholarly discourse, another, equally important one, is to encourage you to reflect on your own status as a critical reader of, and writer about, literature.  As such, we will keep literature firmly in our sights as we proceed through the semester’s readings.