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Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory

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The Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory is an interdisciplinary program developed within the Graduate College and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It works to promote conversations among a range of departments in the humanities, social sciences, and performing arts by organizing lectures, panel discussions, and conferences, as well as a yearly series of lectures on Modern Critical Theory. The Unit is one of several dozen centers around the world devoted to critical theory.[1][2]

Founded in 1981 under the leadership of Cary Nelson, the Unit has promoted scholarly discussion and debate about topics such as poststructuralism, cultural studies, Marxism, feminism, postcolonial theory, and the politics of disciplinarity and knowledge production. In The Employment of English: Theory, Jobs, and the Future of Literary Studies, literary scholar Michael Berube writes that "[b]y formally bringing together, through zero-time appointments, faculty members from disciplines engaged in some degree by theorized recursivity," the Unit for Criticism "has helped produce dialogue spoken in a kind of esperanto based in shared hermeneutic practices," performing an important interdisciplinary function within the university.[3]Harrison, Brady (2009), "Empire and the Anxiety of Influence", in Rothberg, Michael and Peter K. Garrett (ed.), Cary Nelson and the Struggle for the University, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, pp. 195–197</ref> Although some criticized the books for being excessively theoretical and for what Terry Eagleton, in a review of Cultural Studies, called the “anything-goes-ism”[4] of cultural studies, they provoked discussion about the nature of interdisciplinary work in the humanities and social sciences. Hayden White called Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture a "major event in the discourse of cultural criticism of our time,"[5] Timothy Brennan noted that Marxism was “already featured on the reading lists of cultural studies seminars across the country,” [6] and Kristine L. Fitch wrote of Cultural Studies that “As an inquisitive stance from which to conduct research into a complex world of human beings and human problems, the book has a great deal to offer even when one does not entirely buy (as I do not) what cultural studies scholars do or how they do it.” [7]

Conferences and symposia

  • The Eighties in Theory and Practice (2013)
  • Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture at 25: Theories for the New Millennium (2013)
  • Beyond Utopia? Art, Theory, and the Coming of "Spring" (2012)
  • The Ends of History (2012)
  • Freedom and Its Discontents (2011)
  • Bios: Life, Death, Politics (2010)
  • Mad World: Sex, Politics, Style and the 1960s (2010)[8]
  • Feminist Futures (2009)
  • Comparative Human Rights: Literature, Art, Politics (2009)
  • Decolonizations: Subaltern Studies and Indigenous Critical Theory (2008)
  • Poetry, Politics & the Profession: A Tribute to Cary Nelson (2006)
  • States of Welfare (2006)
  • Rethinking Secularism in an Age of Belief (2005)
  • Fetishizing the Free Market: The Cultural Politics of Neoliberalism (2005)
  • Postcolonial Studies and Beyond (2002)[9]

Books and special issues derived from Unit conferences

  • Mad World: Sex, Politics, Style, and the 1960s (Duke University Press, 2012)
  • Between Subalternity and Indigeneity (Interventions: International Journal of Postocolonial Studies, vol. 13, iss. 1, 2011)
  • States of Welfare (Occasion, vol. 2, 2010)
  • Comparative Human Rights (Journal of Human Rights, vol. 9, no. 2, 2010)
  • Cary Nelson and the Struggle for the University (SUNY Press, 2009)
  • Postcolonial Studies and Beyond (Duke UP, 2005)
  • Disciplinarity at the Fin de Siècle (Princeton UP, 2001)
  • Disciplinarity and Dissent in Cultural Studies (Routledge, 1996)
  • Higher Education Under Fire (Routledge, 1994)
  • Cultural Studies (Routledge, 1991)
  • Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (U of Illinois P, 1988)[10]

References

  1. ^ http://www.humanities.uci.edu/critical/resources.html
  2. ^ Striphas, Ted (1998), "CULTURAL STUDIES' INSTITUTIONAL PRESENCE: A RESOURCE AND GUIDE", Cultural Studies, 12 (4): 571–594
  3. ^ Berube, Michael, The Employment of English: Theory, Jobs, and the Future of Literary Studies, New York University Press, 1998, p. 196
  4. ^ Eagleton, Terry (18 December 1992). “Proust, punk, or both.” Times Literary Supplement, pp. 5-6.
  5. ^ http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/27mnn6nz9780252014017.html
  6. ^ Brennan, Timothy (2009), Review of Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Modern Fiction Studies, 35.2 (1989): 367-370.
  7. ^ Fitch, Kristine L. Review of Cultural Studies, The Quarterly Journal of Speech 80.2 (1994): 240-242.
  8. ^ http://www.illinoistimes.com/Springfield/article-6979-mad-for-lsmad-menrs.html Coverage of Mad World in the Illinois Times
  9. ^ http://criticism.english.illinois.edu/archives/EventArchives.htm
  10. ^ http://criticism.english.illinois.edu/aboutus.htm#books
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