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 2024/25b: 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 Burke’s words, “the naming of situations.” the syllabus features thinkers who use interlocking literary and philosophical tools (concept-metaphors) to give us fresh and irreverent readings of the social text. We engage with books and articles that interrupt our cognitive and moral certainties in the spirit of unchartered, affirmative inquiry, what Nietzsche called “the gay science.” Many of our readings are devoted to what we might loosely call “autotheory,” to authors who use theory to situate their affective experiences in a ramified map of modernity (from industrialism to neoliberalism).Texts include: Walter Benjamin’s One-Way Street, Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, Vol 1: An Introduction, Paul B. Preciado’s Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era, Anne Anlin Cheng’s Ornamentalism, Judith Butler’s Notes Toward a performative Theory of Assembly, Achille Mbembe’s Necro-Politics, and Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts. Heesok Chang.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS