Theories and Methods of Literary Study II

Having pushed the boundaries of the discipline of Comparative Literature in the first semester course, this second semester course enacts a return to the more familiar territory of the literary as primary object of study, but introduces students to - or refreshes their memory of! - a number of different critical theories and approaches to studying the literary object. These are all theories which emerged in the 20th century and which are continuing to inform and feed into contemporary modes of analysis. Over the course of the semester, students will explore a variety of critical approaches to interpreting literary texts in the light of the discussed theories. The opening session on Testimony provides a link between the problematic object of study of the first semester and the focus on theoretical approaches of the second semester. We then survey Formalism and Bakhtin, and subsequently move through literary criticism undertaken from Psychoanalytic, Feminist, Queer and Postcolonial perspectives. Each seminar will concentrate on the discussion of one or two reasonably short theoretical texts, which will then be applied analytically. Credit Level: 11 Year taken: Postgraduate