This is a survey of the main trends in twentieth-century literary theory. Lectures will provide background for the readings and explicate them where appropriate, while attempting to develop a coherent overall context that incorporates philosophical and social perspectives on the recurrent questions: what is literature, how is it produced, how can it be understood, and what is its purpose?
Introduction
Introduction (cont.)
Ways In and Out of the Hermeneutic Circle
Configurative Reading
The Idea of the Autonomous Artwork
The New Criticism and Other Western Formalisms
Russian Formalism
Semiotics and Structuralism
Linguistics and Literature
Deconstruction I
Deconstruction II
Freud and Fiction
Jacques Lacan in Theory
Influence
The Postmodern Psyche
The Social Permeability of Reader and Text
The Frankfurt School of Critical Theory
The Political Unconscious
The New Historicism
The Classical Feminist Tradition
African-American Criticism
Post-Colonial Criticism
Queer Theory and Gender Performativity
The Institutional Construction of Literary Study
The End of Theory?; Neo-Pragmatism
Reflections; Who Doesn't Hate Theory Now?