Introduction to European Critical Theory

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2015:

Total of 170 hours.

European Studies students wishing to enrol in this subject would normally have completed 37.5 points of second/third-year European Studies.

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For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Students Experiencing Academic Disadvantage Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Description, Subject Objectives, Generic Skills and Assessment Requirements of this entry.The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the disability support scheme can be found at the Disability Liaison Unit website: http://www.services.unimelb.edu.au/disability/

Students in a pure Honours course in French, German, Italian, Russian or Spanish are normally expected to enrol in this subject, unless they have been exempted by the course coordinator.

This subject provides an introduction to the central topics and problems raised in European Critical Theory in the period from 1968-2000. It aims not merely to introduce the concepts, but to demonstrate how these concepts can be operationalised in methods of analysis. The topics to be considered will include, amongst others: the author, text/context/frame, formal methods and materialist/historical concerns, discourse, the reader, the subject deconstruction. Theorists contributing to our understanding of these topics will include: Barthes, Derrida, Foucault, Benjamin, Kristeva, Spivak.

By the end of the subject, students will:

• have learned how to read theoretical writing.
• have learned how any particular theoretical orientation allows us to ask questions that we would not ask otherwise.
• have learned that a 'theory' is not merely a set of ideas, but a technical instrument for analysing language-based cultural objects such as literature, and
• have learned how to engage in such analyses and to evaluate their outcomes.

Written work totalling 5000 words:

• A 3500-word essay [70%] (due one week after the end of semester)
• Brief presentations on key issues for discussion totalling 1500 words [30%] (due at regular intervals during the semester with written versions due one week after presentation)

• Materials supplied by the School in a course reader

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

• apply certain methods of criticism on literary texts taken from a range of genres.
• elaborate their own research project, applying literary criticism to a work of their choice.