Introduction to Critical Theory CLIL 2 3301-L2ICT-CLIL2
The course is meant to provide students with methodological tools useful for the analysis of both literary and cultural texts, with emphasis on the application of concepts from philosophical discourses to analyzing literary/cultural texts and comprehending cultural and social processes (the emergence of mass culture, changes in the popularity of certain genres and media, links between shifts in the economy and cultural production, etc.). The thinkers discussed on this course include: Wolfgang Iser, Frederic Jameson, Michel Foucault, Virginia Woold, Laura Mulvey, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Judith Butler, Stuart Hall, Donna Haraway, Mike Featherstone, Lennard Davis. The understanding of the notion of critical theory within the framework of the course is broad. The range of texts that can be analyzed using these tools is also purposefully broad: the purpose being to teach students to trace certain philosophical concepts across different media.
The course is taught using CLIL methodology with emphasis on the acquisition of new vocabulary and academic writing skills by the students. To achieve these goals, students will be asked to submit two critical summaries (400-500 words), and a critical essay (4-5 pages).The course involves extensive practice in the use of spoken and written English for academic purposes.
The course instructor chooses the obligatory reading (up to two per meeting). The texts can be found in the anthologies listed in the course bibliography.
Class Schedule:
1. Reader response theory.
Reading: Robert Jauss, "Toward an Aesthetic of Reception"
Norman Holland, “Who Reads What How?”
Wolfgang Iser, “The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach”
Stanley Fish, "Is There a Text in This Class?"
2. Postmodernism
Reading/watching: Friedrich Nietzsche, Human All Too Human BBC Series Episode (1999) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDTrU_nWZdQ “Beyond Good and Evil”
Jean-François Lyotard, “Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism”
Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism, Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”
Featherstone “Cultural Change and Social Practice” and “The Aesthetization of Everyday Life”
3. Poststructuralism: Michel Foucault and Power Structures
Reading: Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (fragment on Docile Bodies)
4. Feminist Theory
Reading: Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own”
bell hooks, Feminism Is for Everybody
Angela McRobbie, “Postfeminism”
5. Psychoanalytic Feminism
Reading: Simone de Beauvoir, Interview –The Second Sex
Laura Mulvey “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” + interview
6. Gender and Queer Theory
Reading: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, fragments from Epistemology of the Closet
Michel Foucault, fragments from History of Sexuality – (instructor’s presentation)
Judith Butler, fragments from Gender Trouble – (instructor’s presentation)
Susan Sontag “Notes on Camp” (Internet)
Jack Halberstam “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Men, Women and Masculinity
7. Race Theory.
Reading: Kimberlé Crenshaw, Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color
Toni Morrison, “Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination”
bell hooks, “Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism”
Stuart Hall – “Race the Floating Signifier” [online lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PodKki9g2Pw]
8. Postcolonial theory.
Reading: Edward Said, fragments from Orientalism
Gayatri Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”
Vanessa Watts “Indigenous place-thought & agency amongst humans and non-humans (First Woman and Sky Woman go on a European world tour!)
9. Posthumanism.
Reading: Donna Haraway “A Cyborg Manifesto”
Arthur Kroker and Marylouise Kroker “Code Warriors: Bunkering In and Dumbing Down
Anne Balsamo, “The Virtual Body in Cyberspace”
10. Affect theory
Reading: Mike Featherstone, “Body, Image, Affect in Consumer Culture”
11. Environmental studies
Reading: Lawrence Buell, “The Environmental Imagination”
Timothy Morton, “Ecology Without Nature”
Kari Weil, Chapter One, Why Animal Studies Now
Donna Haraway, "Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden"
Cary Wolfe "Human, All Too Human: Animal Studies and the Humanities"
Harlan B. Miller, Thinking with Animals
Christopher Carter, The Posthuman Condition
12. Medical Humanities/ Disability Studies
Reading: Lennard Davis, The End of Normal.
Type of course
Prerequisites (description)
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Knowledge
Students will be able to:
- understand key terminology, well established methods and theories of literary studies and culture studies within English studies (K_W02);
- describe methodology and recent developments in English literary studies and culture studies (K_W03);
- explain principles of designing literary and culture studies, with special focus on selecting appropriate methods and tools in formulating research questions (K_W07);
- identify on an advanced level the multiplicity of cultures and their complexity, cultural codes, as well as structural and institutional background of culture, with special focus on English-speaking countries (K_W09),
Abilities
Students will be able to:
- employ the terminology and methodological tools from literary studies and culture studies (K_U01);
- employ the methodology of literary and culture studies within English studies, respecting the ethical norms and copyright law (K_U02);
- implement knowledge to describe a problem and identify means to solve it, thereby completing a project in literary studies and in culture and religion studies (K_U04);
- collect information from various sources, critically assess a source and usefulness of information; analyze and draw generalizations on the basis of information so obtained (K_U05);
- present knowledge and communicate in a cohesive, precise and linguistically correct manner in the English language at level C1 as defined by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (K_U09).
Social competences
Students will be ready to:
- undertake life-long learning and personal development, applying skills and competences to select subjects and projects optimally suiting one’s personal interests (K_K02);
- value responsibility for one’s own work and respect the work of others, adhering to the professional and ethical norms in various projects and other activities undertaken at work, voluntary services, etc.. (K_K03);
- function effectively in social and cultural interactions, through various forms and media, thanks to the ability to express oneself in a cohesive and lucid manner (K_K05);
- value cultural heritage and cultural diversity (K_K06).
Education at language level B2+.
Assessment criteria
- attendance
- participation in discussions, papers written throughout the semester.
, final paper.
3 absences are allowed.
Bibliography
Adams, Hazard, and Leroy Searle, eds. Critical Theory Since 1965. Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1986.
Leitch, Vincent B., William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, John McGowan, T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, and Jeffrey J. Williams, eds. Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 3rd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2018.
Nealon, Jefferey and Susan Searls Giroux. The Theory Toolbox. Second Edition. Rowman and Littlefield, 2012.
Richter, David H., ed. The Critical Tradition: The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007.
Featherstone, Mike. Consumer Society and Postmodernism. Sage, 1991.
Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke University Press, 1991.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: