COML 3021 - Literary Theory on the Edge

(crosslisted) ENGL 3021, FREN 3921, PMA 3421
(ALC-AS) (D-AG) (EC-SAP)

Spring. 3 credits. Student option grading.

No previous knowledge of theory required. Designated theory course for Comparative Literature majors. Co-meets with COML 6159/PMA 6421.

C. Caruth.

This course examines a range of exciting and provocative 20^th- and 21^st- century theoretical paradigms for thinking about literature, language and culture. These approaches provide differing, though often overlapping, entryways into theoretical analysis, including structuralism and post-structuralism, translation studies, Black studies, Afro-Diasporic Studies, postcolonial and decolonial studies, performance studies, media theory and cinema/media studies, the digital humanities, psychoanalysis and trauma theory, gender studies and queer studies, studies of the Anthropocene/environmental studies, and animal studies. Occasional invited guests, lectures and class discussions will provide students with a facility for close textual analysis, a knowledge of major currents of thought in the humanities, and an appreciation for the uniqueness and complexity of language and media.