Satisfies departmental theory requirement. Topic for Fall 2015: The Golden Age of Theory. An examination of the vicissitudes of a series of speculative readings, mostly French, of a number of texts, mostly Germanic, as they converged to form the literary tradition known as "theory." Readings from Saussure, Derrida, Laplanche, Deleuze, Lacan, Foucault, Zizek.