This course aims to introduce students to the field of social, historical, and philosophical inquiry commonly aggregated under the umbrella term "critical theory." We will discuss a number of movements including Marxism, structuralism, deconstruction, feminism, race studies, queer studies, and cultural studies, and will read key texts by the likes of Karl Marx, Louis Althusser, Claude Levi-Strauss, Jacques Derrida, Judith Butler, Gayle Rubin, Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and/ or Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. The focus will be on understanding the theoretical texts, their historical contexts, and their application to 2-3 novels that we will be reading, which will include Ruth Ozeki's "My Year of Meats," Salman Rushdie's "Fury," Toni Morrison's "Sula," and/ or Karen Tei Yamashita's "Through the Arc of the Rainforest." We may also supplement these readings with films including "The Corporation" and "Ethnic Notions."