Abstract

“Violating Pedagogy: Literary Theory in the Twenty-first Century College Classroom” discusses the challenge of teaching literary theory to undergraduate and graduate students in a cultural atmosphere that may at times feel simultaneously anti-intellectual and overpopulated with competing scholarly concerns. Approaching theory as a guiding force for individualized inquiry, we can embrace the fragmentation of the field by organizing courses according to major topics of interest that are addressed by multiple schools and movements, allowing for idiosyncratic theoretical fusions to occur. Further, the teacher of literary theory can assist students by acknowledging that the study of theory can be enlightening but also intellectually disruptive, creating more questions than it answers and forcing investigators (including the instructor) to reassess their own systems of belief in ways that may be disquieting or even painful.