ENG 5079 Fall 2021 Garcia

This version of ENG 5079 is organized around critique as a theoretical practice with roots in German philosophy and Western Marxism. After surveying key writings by Kant, Marx, and Nietzsche, we will discuss how these perspectives have been taken up by the Frankfurt School and in French thought. We will consider recent challenges to critique's effectiveness by Latour and Felski and how these challenges have inspired newer models for literary criticism: “surface” reading, a “descriptive” turn, and a renewed formalism. Later readings focus on the interconnections between aesthetics and politics (Arendt, Rancière), a possible return to ideology, and attempts to theorize the pandemic. Finally, we will read selections from scholars who extend critique to black music (Fumi Okiji) and historicism (Stephen Best).