CRITICAL THEORY at Northwestern
University
The Program in Critical Theory
What is “critical theory”? Over the past three decades, particularly in the United States, the term has come to designate a type of study that cuts across existing disciplines and that demands reflection on the premises, concepts, and categories that structure academic discourse in areas such as literary studies, philosophy, art history, media studies, history, and political theory, to name only a few. Critical theory cannot therefore be limited to a particular field or even to a specific content; it is involved wherever the methods, presuppositions, and basic concepts of a discipline, mode of thought, or form of life are no longer taken for granted but are, instead, subjected to critical reflection in a rigorous—and, when appropriate, a systematic—manner.
Critical theory plays an increasingly important role in a wide variety of disciplines. By engaging in serious study of the various dimensions of critical theory and the numerous fields in which it has been developed and to which it is applied—from philosophy and literary theory to cultural studies and political theory—students will be able to engage in a genuinely interdisciplinary research.
**** Jacques DERRIDA PRIZES in Critical Theory****
The Program in Critical Theory Offers Two Awards for the Best Essays of the Year:
$400 for the best essay from an undergraduate student and $400 for the best essay from a graduate student
“Critical Theory” is a term that over the past three decades, particularly in the United States, has come to designate a particular approach to study rather than a self-contained discipline. It entails reflection upon the premises, concepts and categories used in different disciplines such as literary studies, history, political theory and film studies, to name only a few. Critical theory can therefore not be limited to a particular field or even to a specific content. It is involved wherever methods and concepts are not simply taken for granted but subjected to a critical reflection in a systematic and precise fashion.
These prizes are named in honor of Jacques Derrida, who tirelessly submitted the idea and practice of critique to his own form of rigorous critical examination.
Contest Guidelines
1. Any student may submit an original essay written for a course taken at Northwestern University during the current academic year, regardless of which department or program offered the course in question.
2. The paper should have a title page but should not include the student's name, the course number, or the name of its instructor. A coversheet with the following information must be submitted along with the essay:
a) Name of student, address, phone number, and e-mail address.
b) Title of course and name of professor.
c) Status of the student: for graduate students, the department or program in which one is matriculated; for undergraduates, major(s) and minor(s).
3) Submissions should be placed in the box of Peter Fenves, Professor of German, Kresge 2-375.
4) The deadline for submissions is Monday, May 23, 2005.
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Affiliated Faculty Members
Penelope Deutscher (Philosophy)
Scott Durham (French and Italian)
Peter
Fenves (German), co-director
Robert
Gooding-Williams (Philosophy)
Susannah
Gottlieb (English)
Bonnie
Honig (Political Science)
Terry
Pinkard (Philosophy)
Regina
Schwartz (English)
Alexander
Weheliye (English)
Samuel
Weber (Avalon Professor of Humanities), co-director
Linda
Zerilli (Political Science)
Undergraduate Minor in Critical Theory
Minor Course
Requirements (6 units)
1. Comp Lit 207, Introduction to Critical Theory.
2. 5 more courses designated as classes in critical theory distributed in the following manner: at least one course must be taught by one of the Visiting Professors in Critical Theory, generally offered as CLS 390 or CLS 397. And at least one course must be taken in each of the following three disciplines: literary theory, political theory, and philosophy. All courses designated by the Program in Critical Theory will be at the 300-level.
Examples of courses that fulfill the major are: Phil 390 (Special Topics in Philosophy: History of German Philosophy from Kant to Nietzsche); French 396 (Contemporary French Thought); Germ 314 (The Uncanny); Pol Sci 390 (Special Topics in Political Science: Moral Dilemmas). In general, 300-level courses taught by the affiliated faculty members can be applied to the minor requirements.
For more information about any matter concerning the undergraduate minor, please contact the co-director, Peter Fenves
<p-fenves@northwestern.edu>.
The Graduate
Program in Critical Theory
The graduate concentration in critical theory offered by the Program in Comparative Literary Studies aims at creating a forum within which young scholars can undertake individual programs in literary and cultural analysis from theoretically sophisticated and historically informed perspectives. Students are trained in particular literary and cultural traditions as well as in the questions, methods, and practices of the broad assemblage of discourses associated with critical theory. The aim of graduate study in this critical theory is the facilitation of innovative research into literature and culture.
For more information, click http://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/complit/
Paris
Program in Critical Theory
The Paris Program in Critical Theory was begun by Professor Samuel Weber at UCLA in 1990. It has been run through Northwestern University since 2000, when Prof. Weber accepted the position of Avalon Professor of the Humanities at Northwestern. The Program affords advanced graduate students from a wide variety of disciplines a unique opportunity to familiarize themselves with cutting-edge French and European theoretical research by spending one year in Paris under optimal conditions.
The Paris Program, which has rapidly established itself as a valuable resource for graduate students across the United States, has two major functions: to provide funding for one year of research in Paris, and to create a situation under which that year can be put to best possible use.
Each year a small number of highly qualified graduate students from Northwestern are awarded fellowship support for one year from the Paris Program. These students, most of whom have advanced to candidacy, participate in a weekly seminar organized during the fall quarter in Paris by the Program's founder and director, Professor Samuel Weber.
For
further information, click http://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/parisprogram/
The Graduate
Program in German Literature and Critical Theory
German literature has always engaged in an intimate dialogue with speculative and critical thought. This dialogue has also given raise to much of the most significant work in the humanities over the past three centuries: from J. J. Winckelmann's Reflections on the Imitation of Greek Works and Kant's Critique of Judgment to Walter Benjamn's "Art in the Age of its Mechanical Reproducibility" and Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism. The importance of the tradition that develops out of the interaction between German literature and critical thought is demonstrated by the centrality of this tradition to both contemporary literary theory and cultural studies - and to the debate between them.
The Ph.D. program offered by the Department of German trains students in the philosophical, critical, and historical dimensions of German literature from the 18th to the 20th centuries. It offers them a variety of vantage points from which they can undertake sustained scholarly work in literary history, cultural analysis, and literary theory. Not conventional in its approach, the program helps its graduate students develop their interest in German literature, thought and culture into innovative and long-range research projects.
For more information, click http://www.german.northwestern.edu/graduate/graduate.html
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