Penn Arts & Sciences Logo
 

Introduction to Literary Theory: Ideology

ENGL 1400.401
also offered as: COML 1400/GRMN 1303
instructor(s):
Tuesday 12-2:59pm

This seminar will provide an introduction to literary theory by focusing on ideology. We will explore how ideology becomes a name for investigating various social, political, and economic processes underwriting cultural production. Throughout the semester we will read texts that help to establish a genealogy of ideology. At the same time, we will examine a number of critical theories—including (post)structuralism, deconstruction, Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism, critical race theory, postcolonial studies, and environmental studies—that offer frameworks for analyzing the complex relationships among language, representation, and power in literature, popular culture, and public discourse. Finally, we will place these theories in conversation with a number of contemporary political debates, including feminist challenges to pornography, legal disputes over hate speech, social controversies over affirmative action, state rhetoric regarding the “war on terror,” and scientific deliberations on climate change.

 

English Major Requirements
  • Sector 1 Theory and Poetics (AETP)
  • Sector 6 20th & 21st Centuries (AE20)
English Concentration Attributes
  • Theory & Cultural Studies Concentration (AETC)
College Attributes