This course will introduce students to foundational concepts, thinkers, and trajectories in critical theory with the aim of understanding what critical theory is, and how students can best utilize it in their own scholarly and creative interests. The course begins by surveying topics such as capitalism, psychoanalysis, and power before turning our attention to race, (settler/de)colonization, gender, sexuality, aesthetics, and affect. At the end of the course, students will be equipped with key theoretical and conceptual vocabularies.
This seminar interrogates the body as a critical mode of being. It traces a genealogy of theoretical interventions around identity, community, and institutionality, as well as approaching the contemporary mechanisms through which gender and sexuality are specifically wielded as instruments of embodied power be they aesthetic, biological, technical, or cultural. We will think through interlocking questions of race, capital, ecology, affect, orientation, computation, disability, and transness as epistemological, topographical, and mediated apparatuses of assembled control. We will work through a diverse array of texts to further our exploration of gender and sexuality and their embodied relation to politics, ethics, and being.
This course develops the critical writing skills essential for graduate-level scholarship and public engagement, launching a year-long arc in which students develop a project from an initial idea toward an article-length piece of writing. Students practice writing as a mechanism for thinking, learning to generate ideas through sustained writing practice and to develop arguments through repeated cycles of ideating, drafting, revising, and peer review. The course emphasizes clarity and precision, rhetorical awareness, and writing for specific readers, supported by practical writing and editing exercises and by readings that specifically address the practice of writing for both public and scholarly audiences. Students learn to write abstracts and propose papers for academic conferences, then write those papers and deliver them to a public audience in a class conference at the end of the semester. Workshop sessions provide structured peer feedback and revision guidance, building editing skills that students apply to their own work and the work of others.
Continuing the development begun in Writing Seminar 1, this course completes the first-year writing arc as students develop their projects into sustained, article-length pieces of writing. Students learn to write papers for scholarly journals, understanding the conventions, peer review processes, and revision strategies required for academic publication. The course also emphasizes writing cultural criticism for public forums, helping students translate complex theoretical ideas for general audiences. Students explore genres including personal essay, cultural criticism, creative nonfiction, and hybrid forms, examining how critical writers position themselves in relation to their subjects and audiences. Workshop sessions continue to develop editing skills applicable to students' own work and the work of others. The cumulative experience of this intensive, year-long focus on writing and editing is a key deliverable of the program: it approximates, on a smaller scale, the process students will undertake in Thesis 1 and 2.
The course provides an exploratory space for students to engage with cutting-edge debates, methodologies, and perspectives in critical theory. Each semester, the course theme will shift, reflecting the ever-evolving landscape of critical studies and the interests of both the students and the instructor. Throughout the course, students will critically examine a variety of themes, with past topics having included Disability Narratives and Affect Theory and Aesthetics. These themes offer a lens through which students can explore broader questions of culture, society, and representation. The course will encourage students to interrogate how these themes intersect with issues of identity, power, and resistance.
The theory course sequence is designed to facilitate a holistic approach to critical studies. Each course in the sequence stages an inquiry into a specific problem of critical studies: Culture, Power, Desire, and Liberation. Together this four-part sequence builds a theoretical foundation for students' professional, creative, and critical practices, along with their independent scholarship. These broad themes represent the key dimensions that shape the complex social and political issues that define contemporary life and discourse.
The theory course sequence is designed to facilitate a holistic approach to critical studies. Each course in the sequence stages an inquiry into a specific problem of critical studies: Culture, Power, Desire, and Liberation. Together this four-part sequence builds a theoretical foundation for students' professional, creative, and critical practices, along with their independent scholarship. These broad themes represent the key dimensions that shape the complex social and political issues that define contemporary life and discourse.
Critical Pedagogy, a key course in our graduate program, is tailored for students who are passionate about bringing transformative changes in various educational environments, including college classrooms and community settings. This course combines a strong theoretical foundation with practical, real-world applications, allowing students to deeply understand critical pedagogy and how to put it into practice. The curriculum covers topics like the role of education in society, the connection between teaching and social justice, and how power and resistance play out in educational contexts. The course offers students chances to observe and participate in real teaching situations and to build a teaching portfolio.
The seminar takes as its starting point Critical Race Theory's insistence that racism is pervasive, persistent, and ongoing and examines how racism, colonialism, and imperialism are embedded in institutions, laws, practices, and policies. The seminar acknowledges that race is a social construct with material effects and investigates the roles language, images, and other forms of cultural production play in racism, colonization, and resistance movements. Students will be encouraged to connect assigned texts to their own areas of expertise and research interests.
The first part of the Critical Studies thesis writing sequence is intended to guide and support students as they develop, refine, and propose a master's-level thesis project. The semester begins with each student designing an individualized research plan focused on a particular area of interest. Ten weeks of individual research time will culminate in an annotated bibliography with a critical commentary. Using the bibliography as a springboard, students will go on to draft a formal written proposal for their thesis project.
The second part of the Critical Studies thesis writing sequence is intended to guide and support students as they draft, revise, and submit their final written work for the MA degree. This course will provide students with opportunities to present, refine, and receive feedback on their thesis work. Regular reviews of drafts will occur in a combination of peer-review workshops and meetings with thesis faculty throughout the semester. Each student will also work closely with a mentor with expertise in their area of investigation. Final thesis work must be approved by the Thesis 2 instructor, the program chair, and the thesis mentor at the end of the semester. All students must also give a public presentation of their thesis research at the end of the semester.
The theory course sequence is designed to facilitate a holistic approach to critical studies. Each course in the sequence stages an inquiry into a specific problem of critical studies: Culture, Power, Desire, and Liberation. Together this four-part sequence builds a theoretical foundation for students' professional, creative, and critical practices, along with their independent scholarship. These broad themes represent the key dimensions that shape the complex social and political issues that define contemporary life and discourse.
The theory course sequence is designed to facilitate a holistic approach to critical studies. Each course in the sequence stages an inquiry into a specific problem of critical studies: Culture, Power, Desire, and Liberation. Together this four-part sequence builds a theoretical foundation for students' professional, creative, and critical practices, along with their independent scholarship. These broad themes represent the key dimensions that shape the complex social and political issues that define contemporary life and discourse.
Willamette University