This course is intended to introduce students to (1) the idea of critical, literary, and cultural theories; (2) the discourse surrounding them about their necessity, relevance, significance, and/or redundancy; and (3) the various critical theories and practices in circulation in our contemporary academic discourse as well as the problems and problematics attached to them. Rather than departing from the different theories separately, we will look into particular critical issues and terms and see how various texts define and respond to them. Participants will be required and encouraged to actively participate in discussions because the course aims not so much on the consumptive comprehension of concepts but rather the production of knowledge and critical understanding.

In this course, participants will not only discuss the various issues pertaining and linked to theoretical discourses but also carry out critical practice in the form of a project that addresses the problematics of a text (or a set of texts), or a social phenomenon (or a series of related phenomena). The outcome of the project may take the form of an academic article or other media forms.