ENGL 506 A: Modern and Contemporary Critical Theory

This course offers an introduction to graduate study in English for entering M.A. and Ph.D. students, with emphasis on the key conversations and debates animating the discipline right now as well as the professional skills and knowledge necessary to succeed on a changing job market. Course content will draw proportionally from the fields of literary studies, cultural studies, and language & rhetoric; readings will be both exemplary and representative, covering some of the best and most essential recent work in English, helping us understand how we got here as a discipline, and giving us a roadmap for promising new directions in theory and method that might relate to our scholarly interests. In addition to regular readings and seminar discussions, we will meet periodically with faculty members from across the department for special sessions on individual areas of research. Assignments will be given over to questions of professional development, large and small: What is your subfield and where (e.g. journals, conferences) does it live? How do you formulate a generative research question? What does good academic writing look like? Where do you want your M.A. or Ph.D. to take you?