CSCL3425W
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CSCL 3425W - Critical Theory and Social Change (3 Cr.) Arts/Humanities, Race, Power, and Justice US, Writing Intensive
Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature (10959)
TCLA - College of Liberal Arts
Course description
This course introduces students to influential thinkers in the field of critical theory, broadly conceived. Critical theory is similar to philosophy because it asks big questions that stretch the boundaries of human knowledge. But it is distinct in its focus on practical change—critical theory advocates for a more just and emancipated human world. Its key techniques are the diagnosis and critique of histories, systems, and ideologies of social power. Critical theory emerged from a group of Marxist intellectuals in the 1920s and 30s who were concerned about the rise of fascism, the staggering inequalities produced by industrial capitalism, the trauma of mass violence, and the numbing standardization of modern life. Since then, the field has expanded to encompass concerns about structural racism, gender inequality, the rise of neoliberalism, the expansion of modern carceral and mental health systems, and the ongoing inequities wrought by histories of slavery, colonization, and imperial conquest. Featured authors may include Sigmund Freud, W. E. B. Du Bois, Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Frantz Fanon, Herbert Marcuse, Patricia Hill Collins, Malcom X, Jackie Wang, Angela Y. Davis, Sheldon George, Alfredo Carrasquillo, Joshua Javier Guzman, Willy Apollon, Jean Rouch, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Saidiya Hartman, bell hooks, Édouard Glissant, Aurora Levins Morales, Michael Rothberg, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Christopher Pexa, Yuichiro Onishi, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Lewis Gordon, and Barbara Christian.
Minimum credits
3
Maximum credits
3
Is this course repeatable?
No
Grading basis
OPT - Student Option
Lecture
This course fulfills the following Liberal Education requirement(s)
Arts/Humanities, Race, Power, and Justice in the United States
Fulfills the writing intensive requirement?
Yes
Typically offered term(s)
Every Fall & Spring