2025-2026 GRADUATE COURSE OFFERINGS
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For expanded course descriptions, see below.
Fall 2025
CRI200A - Approaches to Critical Theory
The Introduction
Kris Fallon
Wednesday 1:10-4:00
Cruess Hall 1107
This course will introduce students in the Humanities to some of the many touchstones that comprise what we call theory (or more specifically, ‘critical theory’) by isolating and analyzing that moment when theory seeks to introduce itself: the “Introduction”. The “Introduction” to a text is something of an aberration. On one hand, it is often thought of as outside the text proper, something ancillary to the body of the work, an appendage or afterthought. Although they are the first thing read, they are often the last thing written. And yet, the introduction also functions as a threshold, bringing readers into the world of the book by providing the layout for what’s to come. In theoretical work, it situates the author in relation to other theorists and concepts, offering a sort of theory of the theory that sketches out its main parts in the forthcoming chapters. Like theory itself, the intro is a kind of deferral or deixis, a pointing toward elsewhere where the theory itself manifests. Isolating the “Introduction” and a key selection from each text, the course will cover a broad swath of contemporary theory and its antecedents, including work from foundational figures (Hegel, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche), late 20th century interventions (Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze) and a range of contemporary theorists and theories (Butler, Ahmed, Munoz, Moten, Hartman, among others).
Pre-approved CRI200B
GSW201 - Special Topics in Feminist Theory & Research
Genres of Empire: Race, Gender, Nation
Ava LJ Kim
Thursday 12:00-3:00
Hart Hall 1208
This seminar takes a transnational, comparative approach to analyzing what Sylvia Wynter calls "genres of being human." Moving across nations and regions, we will examine the various forms of collectivity that have long mediated power relations between the global south and the global north: empires, nations, and states; colonial and postcolonial policies; and anti-imperialist solidarity movements. We will take texts from anthropology, history, cultural studies, social theory, and literary theory, to explore the intimacies of subject formation in imperial contexts with a special emphasis on race and gender. We will also trace how narratives of belonging have come to inform notions of the nation after 1945: from decolonization movements in the late 20th century to indigenous refusals in the 21st. Throughout the course, we will ask both what genres of the human have shifted over time (and what they look like today) as well as what other genres of being have been articulated by scholars, artists, and activists. Potential thinkers we may engage with include Shona Jackson, Michael Ralph, María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo, Mimi Thi Nguyen, C. Riley Snorton, Neferti Tadiar, Deborah Thomas, Jodi Byrd, Audra Simpson, Patricio Abinales, Jennifer Ponce de León, Lisa Stevenson, Jacob Dlamini, and more.
Winter 2026
CRI200A/CST200B - Approaches to Critical Theory
Bad Institutions
Toby Warner
Time and Location TBD
Pre-approved CRI200B
ANT210 - Aspects of Culture Structure
Freud, Lacan, and the Work of the Unconscious
Fatima Mojadeddi
Time and Location TBD
Pre-approved CRI200B
ENL238 - Special Topics in Literary Theory
Narrative Ecology
Tobias Meneley
Time and Location TBD
Spring 2026
CRI200C - History of Critical Theory
The Dialectic of Individual and Community
Julia Simon
Time and Location TBD
Pre-approved CRI200B
ENL233 - Problems in American Literature
Racial and Colonial Geographies
Hsuan L. Hsu
Time and Location TBD