Literature and Critical Theory Courses

LCT202Y1Y
Forms of Representation
Professor Ann Komaromi & Professor Sarah Dowling
M 12-2

In this class students will explore the problem of representation across cultural boundaries. We will consider works from the western tradition and beyond, investigating how imaginative texts foster reflection on ourselves and our world. We will pay particular attention to the questions of what “form” is, and what “representation” is. In other words, we will investigate the ways that meaning is produced and understood by members of a culture, and we will examine the special roles that art can play in society and in politics.Topics for critical reflection include: genre, narrative, aesthetics, history, the self and the other, sexuality, and ecology. The texts we'll read might include Homer’s The Odyssey, excerpts from the Bible and the Koran, Aristotle’s Poetics, Sappho's poetry, Dante’s Inferno, Equiano’s Interesting Narrative, Mahasweta Devi's Imaginary Maps, portions of Auerbach’s Figura, and Foucault’s The History of Sexuality. Course activities may include a visit to the E.J. Pratt Library’s Special Collections, and/or sessions with invited scholars and writers. Assessment will be based on committed participation during tutorial and lecture, presentations, and a sequence of written assignments.

Exclusion: VIC202Y1
Distribution Requirement: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)

LCT203H1F
Empires I
Professor Mary Nyquist
T 10-12

LCT204H1S
Canons and Canonicity 
Professor Paul Stevens
T 1-2, R 1-3 

LCT205H1S
Empires II
Professor Conrad James
T 10-12

LCT249H1F
Marx, Nietzsche, Freud
Professor Willi Goetschel
W 3-5

LCT301H1S
Seminar in Critical Writing
Professor Lee Emrich
R 12-2

This course is a writing intensive class devoted to the practice and analysis of critical writing. We will explore the critical tradition, the public(s) for whom one writes, and the choice of voice, point of view, and writerly form. The class will be structured around workshop style discussion and writing exercises.

LCT304H1F
Praxis and Performance
Professor Rebecca Comay
W 1-3

LCT306H1S
Culture and Media
Professor Atsuko Sakaki
R 10-12

This year’s theme is: Image, Sound, Text in Print Culture (Mass Reproduction) In this course we consider how visual, aural, and textual media within the regime of print culture (preceded by manuscript culture, followed by digital culture) have had formative effects on the production, distribution, and reception of art works, through reading theoretical and literary works. Questions to be asked include: How do human bodies and natural and social environs interact with mechanical reproduction? How do artists operate through their opportunities and mediums provided by the system? How do viewers, listeners, and readers have access to and process works of art in or as reproduction (e.g., photography as a medium or an art form in itself)? How do the flux of non-art stimuli (e.g., sound of nature, noise) complicate the boundaries between nature and culture and between the everyday and art? How has manuscript culture persisted and infiltrated print culture? What potentials for experience (e.g., tactile) have been imagined as impossible/possible and materialized/denied through the analog media? How does the copying of image, sound, and text affect the human sense of temporality (e.g., duration, iterability, memory)? Theorists to be considered may include: Bal, Barthes, Batchen, Baudrillard, Benjamin, Berger, Bourdieu, Burgin, Derrida, Flusser, Grosz, Kittler, Lefebvre, Nancy, Silverman, Sontag, Szendy, Voegelin. Writers of literary sources to be read may include: Abe, Auster, Bernhard, Calvino, Cole, Cortazar, Kafka, Kanai, Ondaatje, Pamuk, Tanizaki, Vladislavic.

LCT308H1S
Identities
Professor Andreas Motsch
W 10-12

Though “identity” might suggest sameness, it is historically unstable and has many components, including ability/disability, age, class, ethnicity, gender, health/illness, ‘race,’ sexuality, and religion. This course considers the complexities of identity-formation and identity-transformation as captured in literary texts and cultural artefacts over a wide range of historical and cultural contexts.

Recommended Preparation: LCT202Y1
Exclusion: VIC308H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)

LCT402H1S
Translation and Comparativity
Professor Eric Cazdyn
W 1-3

Prerequisite: LCT202Y1 and one of: LCT302H1, LCT303H1, LCT304H1, LCT305H1, LCT306H1, LCT307H1; or permission of instructor.
Exclusion: VIC402H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)

Prerequisite: LCT202Y1 and one of: LCT302H1,  LCT303H1,  LCT304H1,  LCT305H1,  LCT306H1,  LCT307H1,  LCT308H1. Students who do not meet the prerequisites should contact the department.