Fulfills Distributional Course in Arts & Letters (for students admitted before Fall 2006)

Crosslisted with: COML 291 920

What is literature and what does it mean to read? In this course we will study foundational texts and key concepts in the history of literary theory. Readings will be selected primarily from the Norton Anthology of Criticism and Theory, and may include Plato, Aristotle, Macrobius, Augustine of Hippo, Dante, Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Saussure, T.S. Eliot, Michel Foucault, and Judith Butler. Through our study of these texts, we will engage with key literary-theoretical concepts such as "mimesis", "form", "cultural value", "ideology," "authority," "writing," and "subjectivity" -- all in order to problematize our practices of and expectations for reading.