Time Schedule:
Andrea Opitz
ENGL 304
Seattle Campus
Contemporary criticism and theory and its background in the New Criticism, structuralism, and phenomenology.
Class description
For AUTUMN 2007: Gender, Race, Nation, and the Transnational: This course is intended to introduce students to a number of key theoretical conversations around gender, race and nation and how they are complicated within a transnational context. How have theorists made sense of the complex ways in which race, gender and sexuality structure social relations and determine belonging in a variety of communities? How do their approaches inform and contest each other? What does it means to “theorize”? Why does theory matter? The course’s primary goal is to encourage students to become more comfortable reading sometimes dense and complex texts, and to get a better understanding of how to bring texts into dialogue. We will follow a rigorous reading schedule. Possible reading selections in the course pack include texts by Cornel West, Anne McClintock, Benedict Anderson, Michel Foucault, Gayatri Spivak, Stuart Hall, Lisa Lowe, Inderpal Grewal, and Jacqui Alexander.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
