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Theory and Cultural Studies

Launched in 1998, Theory and Cultural Studies (TCS) is a unique track that offers students a chance to organize their coursework, examinations, and dissertation research in unusual ways, drawing upon several strengths of the department: literary and critical theory, cultural studies and its pedagogies, postcolonial studies, feminist and queer theory, visual culture, and the social-epistemic paradigm of rhetorical analysis. TCS is broad-ranging and flexible, encouraging study in multiple approaches to the field of English.

The concentration brings together scholars working in important overlapping areas of inquiry: textual analysis inflected by feminist and poststructural critique; cultural analysis oriented by an understanding of global socio-economic systems; historical analysis attentive to the work of institutions and ideologies; and teaching practices conditioned by an emphasis on the process of textual production and the goal of what Jim Berlin called "critical citizenship."

Faculty include a core of dedicated scholars – Arkady Plotnisky and Sandor Goodhart – as well as a large host of affiliated professors from other areas of English, including Emily Allen, Dorsey Armstrong, Kristina Bross, John Duvall, Dino Felluga, Geraldine Friedman, Shaun Hughes, Maren Linett, Al Lopez, Bob Marzec, Nancy Peterson, Thomas Rickert, Aparajita Sagar, Ryan Schneider, and Patricia Sullivan.

TCS touches every part of literary studies and production (and beyond!) at Purdue English. From courses in theory to courses that open up new approaches to more traditional pathways, we have something for everyone who loves to break through boundaries.