School of Criticism and Theory

School of Criticism and Theory is an annual summer institute in literary criticism and theory that brought together scholars from across the humanities and social sciences. Founded in the 1970s, the program convened critics, theorists, and intellectuals at venues such as Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University, and Yale University to offer intensive seminars and public lectures. Its sessions featured interlocutors drawn from traditions associated with figures like Murray Krieger, Harold Bloom, and Paul de Man, and engaged debates connected to movements around New Criticism, Structuralism, Deconstruction, Post-structuralism, and Postcolonialism.

History

The institute originated amid debates sparked by scholars connected to Stanford University, Harvard University, Princeton University, Columbia University, and University of California, Berkeley during the 1970s and 1980s. Early gatherings reflected intellectual exchanges involving participants linked to Yale University's literary circle, critics associated with The New York Review of Books, and continental theorists tied to École Normale Supérieure, Université Paris VIII (Vincennes-Saint-Denis), and Société française de philosophie. Over subsequent decades the program intersected with conferences at Modern Language Association, symposia at The New School, and lecture series at King's College London and University of Chicago, hosting debates that resonated with scholarship by Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, and Pierre Bourdieu.

Program and Curriculum

Courses combined seminars, colloquia, and public lectures framed by canonical texts and contemporary interventions from scholars affiliated with Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University Press, and Cambridge University Press. Syllabi ranged from close readings of works by William Shakespeare, John Milton, and Emily Dickinson to theoretical engagements with writings by Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Walter Benjamin. Methodological strands included readings in Structuralism and Deconstruction alongside approaches informed by Feminist theory associated with Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak; Queer theory linked to Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick; and Critical Race Theory resonant with work by Kimberlé Crenshaw and W. E. B. Du Bois. Workshops incorporated archival methods used in studies produced at The British Library, Library of Congress, and Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Faculty and Visiting Scholars

The institute's roster included established figures from institutions such as Columbia University, University of California, Los Angeles, Northwestern University, Duke University, University of Pennsylvania, and Brown University. Visiting faculty encompassed theorists in conversation with texts by Georges Bataille, Giorgio Agamben, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Erwin Panofsky, as well as historians of criticism from Oxford University and Princeton University. Frequent participants came from editorial and curatorial arenas represented by The New Yorker, The Times Literary Supplement, Getty Research Institute, and The Museum of Modern Art, fostering links to scholars such as J. Hillis Miller, Paul de Man, Edward Said, Fredric Jameson, Terrence Hawkes, Gayatri Spivak, and Isaiah Berlin.

Influence and Legacy

The program shaped trajectories in literary studies connected to journals like Critical Inquiry, New Literary History, Diacritics, PMLA, and boundary 2. Its alumni and faculty influenced curricula at University of California, Santa Cruz, University of Toronto, University of Michigan, Columbia University, and University of Sydney, and informed interdisciplinary projects at centers such as Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study, and Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Debates originating in the institute intersected with exhibitions at Tate Modern, policy discussions at UNESCO, and public intellectual exchanges on platforms like The Atlantic and London Review of Books, contributing to the institutionalization of approaches deriving from Deconstruction, Psychoanalytic criticism, and Postcolonial studies.

Notable Alumni and Participants

Notable participants have included scholars and critics affiliated with Harvard University (e.g., Louis Menand), Yale University (e.g., Paul de Man), Columbia University (e.g., Edward Said), University of Chicago (e.g., Fredric Jameson), Duke University (e.g., Jacques Derrida), Brown University (e.g., Lauren Berlant), Princeton University (e.g., Harold Bloom), Cornell University (e.g., Murray Krieger), University of California, Berkeley (e.g., Donna Haraway), Northwestern University (e.g., Henry Louis Gates Jr.), Johns Hopkins University (e.g., J. Hillis Miller), University of Toronto (e.g., Homi K. Bhabha), Yale School of Drama (e.g., Annie Sprinkle), University of Pennsylvania (e.g., Sianne Ngai), New York University (e.g., Fred Moten), University of Oxford (e.g., Terry Eagleton), University of Cambridge (e.g., Raymond Williams), University of Edinburgh (e.g., Henry Jenkins), and University of British Columbia (e.g., Luce Irigaray).

Category:Literary theory