This course will explore the complex and provocative work of a variety of contemporary theorists in terms of a few, fairly simple questions. What are we up to when we read literary texts? What norms or conventions inform even our most casual interpretive act, and where do they come from? What forms of pleasure and what assertions of power are entailed in reading and writing and how do our literary pursuits bear on questions of sexual and political desire? Although we will range beyond these authors, this semester we will focus especially on the work of Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, and feminist theory. In order to keep our own activities as readers at the forefront, we will enter into the critical fray by way of a variety of specific literary texts and films, including novels by Virginia Woolf and Margaret Duras, poetry of Sylvia Plath and Louise Erdrich, films by Werner Herzog and Billy Wilder. Seminar. Requirements: two papers-one shorter, one longer. Prerequisites: a 100-level English course, except 150 (formerly 103). Enrollment limit: 25. (Criticism)