ENGL 7020 - [Key Issues in Contemporary Theory: Ideology, Knowledge, Social Identity]

Fall or Spring. Next Offered: 2020-2021. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Co-meets with ENGL 4070.

S. Mohanty.

An introductory survey of some of the central issues in contemporary theory, drawing on both the humanities and the social sciences, with a special focus on three themes: ideology, objectivity, and social identity. Exploring various theoretical approaches and schools of criticism (e.g., Marxism, feminism, deconstruction, hermeneutics, structuralism, psychoanalysis, postcolonial theory, minority studies, queer studies), we will explore these and other themes and examine some of the underlying—and often competing—epistemological and political claims made about them. No previous knowledge of theory is required.