ENGL 217 - Literary Theory and Interpretation

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

A study of various critical theories and practices ranging from antiquity to the present day.

Topic for 2023/24b: Special Topic: Literary Theory as Equipment for Living: Bypassing theory’s bad reputation as an ivory tower pastime and methodological endgame, we will approach it instead as “equipment for living,” as a pragmatic and personal discourse for, in Kenneth Burke’s words, “the naming of situations.” We will begin by reading some pivotal modern thinkers (including Nietzsche, Saussure, Foucault, Fanon), thinkers who invented concepts to apprehend traditionally neglected domains of inquiry: the historicity of the body and the senses, of gender and sexuality; the correlation of power and knowledge; the relational nature of language and reality, identity and desire. These radical insights are put to work in various contemporary theoretical interventions we will examine, including Anne Cheng on “ornamentalism,” Achille Mbembe on “necropolitics,” and Jose Estaban Muñoz on the “brown commons.” Along the way we will also read two prominent works of “autotheory”: Paul B. Preciado’s Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era and Maggie Nelson’s Argonauts. Heesok Chang.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS