Teaching Theory: A Roundtable

23 Oct 2014 - 17:00 / 23 Oct 2014 - 18:30

Room 119 Emmanuel College
(75 Queen’s Park
U of T

A spectre is haunting the newly re-dubbed Literature and Critical Theory program: the spectre of theory. Hushed and private dialogue among faculty comes closest to revealing the ideas that have played a decisive role in determining the program’s peculiar approach to theoretical pedagogy: theory should not be taught as a canon; one should not present theory as a body of dead work; theory should be a means rather than an end; it should be something that one does rather than something that one learns and applies. Meanwhile, one wonders if keeping theory, so to speak, at arm’s length betrays a fear or avoidance of answering (or trying to answer) certain important and even fundamental questions to our field of study, especially in its current formulation as a pair – literature and critical theory.

 

On October 23rd, 2014, your Literature and Critical Theory Student Union will be holding a panel discussion guided by one overarching question, what is the place of critical theory? The question will be posed in various ways. Can we speak of the “correct” and “incorrect” uses of theory? How should we think of the relation between “theory” and “literature”? How can the concept of “praxis” relate to the study of literature, or to the analysis of other objects? And, finally, what is the pedagogical place of theory: should formalized, canonized instruction be resisted in favour of curricula that might teach students not about theory, but rather to theorize?

 

Speakers will include University of Toronto professors Eric Cazdyn and Rebecca Comay, as well as York University’s Jonathan Adjemian, with moderation by LCT undergraduate Catherine Ribeiro.

 

Rebecca Comay is a professor of philosophy and comparative literature at the University of Toronto as well as being the coordinator of the Literature and Critical Theory program.

 

Eric Cazdyn holds the title of Distinguished Professor of Aesthetics and Politics at the University of Toronto. A chief preoccupation of his work is the problem of praxis, or “the impossible unification of theoretical speculation and everyday practice”.

 

Jonathan Adjemian is a PhD candidate and instructor at York University’s Social and Political Thought program. This past summer, he started School, an outside-the-academy seminar series wherein people with no shared philosophical background gathered together indoors on gorgeous Sunday afternoons to discuss Plato and Catherine Malabou. He considered himself unfit to join this seminar, which of course verified that he was exactly fit to join this seminar.

 

Please join us in this discussion at 5PM in Emmanuel College room 119, and be very liberal with your objections. An LCT general meeting will follow at 6:30PM in the same room, and our fall social will take place later still at 8PM at the Regal Beagle, 335 Bloor Street West.