Methods of Critical Analysis: The Art of Story

This course introduces students to a range of theoretical methodologies used by creative writers and literary scholars. While each section of the course may focus on a different theme or on a different group of primary texts, all sections encourage students to learn and to apply a variety of methods with the goal of crafting critical analyses of literature. In addition, students learn to situate their own critical analyses in conversation with those of other literary scholars, to employ literary and other kinds of evidence in support of their arguments, and to document this research with the conventions most commonly employed in the field of literary study. Students will continue applying the course methodologies in upper-division creative writing and literary studies courses.