Critical practice
P Anderson, A Macdonald, B Nelson
8 points
* 2 or 3 hours per week
* Second semester
*
Clayton
Objectives Students completing this subject should have gained a familiarity with a range of critical and theoretical writings of importance to critical movements in twentieth-century France. They will have had occasion to examine connections and differences between the writings of various significant critics and philosophers. They should have developed an ability to read theoretical prose in French attentively, with a view to analysing techniques of argument construction, conceptual formations, and the implications of metaphoric choices.
Synopsis In the twentieth century, numerous schools of critical thought have emerged in France, or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say `in French'. Not all had their origins in French (with notable imports coming from Germany in particular), and a significant number have exported themselves very successfully into the English-speaking world, but a particular set of articulations took place in the domain of French intellectual activity which has proved extremely productive for both literary and cultural criticism. This subject will look, in any given year, at a selection from Marxist, psychoanalytic, structuralist, and post-structuralist writings, drawing on the works of writers such as Althusser, Barthes, Baudrillard, Deleuze, Foucault, Kristeva, Lacan and Lévi-Strauss. The subject will offer students ways of reading these texts both for their internal critical coherence and for the relationships which can be seen to operate amongst them.
Prescribed texts
Selection of photocopied readings to be distributed
Assessment Written (5000 words): 100%
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