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Description
This course aims to contextualise and introduce key concepts in French postwar (literary) theory by focusing on two of the key figures involved: Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes. Post-war (literary) theory is characterized by an explosion in the understanding of the ways literature, culture and thought can be approached and conceptualized. The experience of literature is connected by these thinkers and writers to experiences of philosophy, linguistics, sociology, history, sexuality, as well as to the other arts.听
The first half of term will focus on Michel Foucault, and his investigations of the ways in which our understanding is structured by particular configurations of knowledge, and the assumptions and desires which drive it. In the second half of term, the course will focus on Roland Barthes, and the ways in which his investigations into history, myth and ideology, for example, force readers into an active kind of reading, and makes an engagement with writing a way of resisting a range of cultural and ideological orthodoxies. The work of both figures will be linked by their shared concern with issues of authority and authorship, two areas of direct concern to literary study.听
The course will be taught in a combination of tutor-led discussions and student-led presentation and seminar debates. The aim is to engage with detailed close reading of specific theoretical texts rather than presenting a wide overview of the proliferating field of post-war theory and its approaches.听
Module deliveries for 2024/25 academic year
Last updated
This module description was last updated on 8th April 2024.
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