ENGL 3300

Critical theory is an approach to humanities and social sciences that seeks to understand and explain how forces like power, conflict, and language shape societies, literatures, and social lives. It is a key tool used by scholars to interpret literary works and to connect their analyses to broad questions about these forces. In this course, we will study representative works from select theoretical schools, such as Feminist Theory, Queer Theory, Critical Race Theory, and Postcolonial Theory, while attending to how these ideas developed in philosophical and aesthetic thought from the Classical period forward. Students will learn how theorists critique and challenge ideologies and power structures in culture and society by analyzing critical texts and excerpts of literature, film, or media.