CRT6000

Critical theory: a survey

Andrew Milner

8 points -2 hours per week -First semester -Clayton

Objectives Upon completion of this subject students should be able to demonstrate substantial familiarity with recent debates in critical theory; articulate the analytical skills, theoretical vocabularies and conceptual apparatuses studied in the subject; write clear, concise, accurate and independent essays on topics related to the reading; explain the possible relevance to their own proposed research of each of the theoretical approaches discussed in the subject.

Synopsis This subject aims to establish the theoretical and methodological foundations for the analysis of literature and culture. These will be examined from a range of competing theoretical perspectives. Discussion will centre on: hermeneutics and reception theory; cultural materialism and the new historicism; semiology and semiotics; ideology critique and the sociology of culture; post-structuralist theories of difference. Each of these will be examined for their respective accounts of critical theory and method. Candidates will be required to consider the possible relevance of each of these approaches to their own proposed research.

Assessment Two 3000-word essays: 50% each

Prescribed texts

Adorno T and Horkheimer M Dialectic of enlightenment Verso, 1979
Bloom H The western canon Harcourt Brace, 1994
Bourdieu P Distinction Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984
Derrida J Writing and difference U Chicago P, 1978
Eagleton T Criticism and ideology New Left, 1976
Greenblatt S Learning to curse Routledge, 1990
Irigaray L This sex which is not one Cornell U P, 1985
Jameson F Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism Verso, 1991
Jauss H R Toward an aesthetic of reception Harvester, 1982
Kristeva J Revolution in poetic language Columbia U P, 1984
Said E W Culture and imperialism Chatto and Windus, 1993
Spivak G C In other worlds Methuen, 1987
Williams R The politics of modernism Verso, 1989

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