Practical Criticism
Training in the close analytical skills required to succeed in graduate programs.
Attentive reading is the central skill not only of literary studies, but also of many other academic disciplines and of many professions. The close reading of literary works is focused on the details of the text, on articulating your own individual responses to it, and on organising these responses into a critical argument – weighing up the evidence and arguing the case for your judgements.
Our course in Practical Criticism is based on a combined 15 years’ teaching literary analysis at Harvard and Cambridge, and on our active research in literary studies. It involves reading literary works closely with an expert in the field, and writing essays to hone your understanding and arguments. The course consists of eight weekly meetings with your supervisor.
Critical Theory
Training in the major intellectual debates of the modern humanities.
Critical theory is the foundation for research in a range of fields: it organises our assumptions, challenges ‘common sense’, and enables us to open up new research questions and fields of inquiry. Reading theory seriously is not only a matter of acquiring useful concepts, but also the development of a working method with which to tackle problems across a variety of intellectual fields.
Our course in critical theory is based on a combined 15 years’ teaching theory at Harvard and Cambridge, and on our active research in literary studies and intellectual history. It involves reading theoretical texts closely with an expert in the field, and writing essays to hone your understanding and arguments. The course consists of eight weekly meetings with your supervisor.