This writing and reading intensive course is a general introduction to the critical perspectives and theories that enliven contemporary cultural studies with attention to various schools of 20th and 21st-century criticism, critical applications, and critical terminology. Theories covered include: Marxism, Psychoanalytic criticism, Structuralism, Post-structuralism, Feminist literary studies, Gender studies, Queer studies, Critical Race studies, Post-colonialism, New Historicism, Cultural studies, and Postmodernism. More broadly, this course explores current studies of literature and culture, examining the practices and values of literary and cultural scholars, students, and teachers in order to gain an understanding of the tradition and norms that have emerged from those practices and values, and finally, to consider which of those trends are most valuable for future critical endeavors in the field of cultural studies.