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Learning Outcomes

Demonstrate graduate level research skills through the thesis process.

Communicate ideas effectively in written and oral forms for a variety of audiences and stakeholders.

Develop postgraduate professional practice and collaborative skills.

Develop an understanding of how critical theory’s questions/concerns/theories influence your own research interests (through scholarly research and critical writing).


The required course sequence builds from identifying key questions and issues in critical theory and cultural studies, to providing students with the methodological, research, and writing skills they need to ask good questions and to investigate their self-selected areas of inquiry in a thesis project of their own design. The thesis writing occurs during the second year, resulting in both academic research and opportunities for public scholarship based on the student’s professional interests.

Key Skills and Competencies

  • Writing clearly and directly
  • Writing as a thinking mechanism
  • Writing for a specific reader
  • Revision
  • Unpacking how texts work
  • Thinking critically
  • Reading closely and carefully
  • Facilitating discussion
  • Public speaking and presentation skills
  • Giving and receiving feedback
  • Working with complexity and ambiguity

Willamette University

Critical Studies