This course will provide a general introduction to contemporary theory and the practice of theorizing. While we will certainly treat theoretical works by some of the big names on some of the big issues, this course is neither meant to survey texts that might fall under the rubric of “contemporary theory” nor to offer a series of “best hits” that you are likely to encounter in graduate school. Rather, it aims to explore what it means to theorize, how theoretical debates unfold, and how you may most effectively, as a member of the profession, begin to intervene into such theoretical debates in a manner that demonstrates awareness of the larger conversation and the genealogy of the theoretical terms and concepts on the table. To this end we will examine textual clusters comprised of materials produced by theorists who are either directly or implicitly in conversation with each other. Our focus will be on discerning the stakes involved in these conversations and on evaluating the problems and possibilities that are sparked or foreclosed by different interventions into these conversations. We will pay special attention to the historical unfolding of critical conversations across time and space, and thus to the social and political contexts in which such conversations transpire.
Readings will include a range of texts on the following key topics: the discipline and its limits; cultural studies and cultural politics; political economy and literary production; race, nation, gender, sexuality and empire in literary study; effective criticism.