Critical Theory
How do different people know the world differently?
What is knowledge (also called "epistemology")?
What symbols and representations form commonly-accepted knowledge in society?
How can we examine and redefine narrow yet popular definitions of knowledge?
How does knowledge through critical interpretation help us to understand and define human life?
How is knowledge represented in texts?
How does self-reflection about our own knowledge help us move past systems of domination or dependence?
How does freedom of knowledge beyond the status quo expand our individual potentials?
Feminist Theory
What are social constructions of gender?
How do sex traits and gender differ?
How does gender inequality shape social life?
How are women's social roles and lived experiences defined through systems of male dominance (also called "patriarchy")?
How has the notion of the body (and not the mind) become associated with women?
Why are women often restricted to roles of servant, caretaker, nurturer, and sex object?
How do expectations around feminine body image inform and restrict female identity?
In what ways has society justified women as property, objects, and/or commodities?
What happens when we redefine how humans should live beyond categories of gender?
What social commentaries do texts make about gender and sexual roles?
In what ways are females silenced in life? In texts?
What are the contexts in which female voices emerge?
What happens when we radically deprivilege the status of gender in traditional discourses?
Masculinity Theory
What are the social constructions of masculinity?
How do dominant standards of masculinity affect individual male's identity formation?
In what ways are many male behaviors and ways of being the product of society and culture?
How do dominant expectations around males to be strong, tough, and powerful (also known as "hegemony") define and restrict the society in which we live?
Can an individual male wish or will away expectations around aggressive and violent behavior?
How do traditional masculinities--- when combined with racialized and socioeconomic identities--- become barriers for male identity evolution?
How can males rise to new levels in which they can be self-confident, independent, expressive, and nurturing?
What happens when we radically deprivilege the status of gender in traditional discourses?
In what ways might redefining masculinity infuse males in society with greater possibilities for defining the Self?
Gay/ Lesbian/ Queer Theory
How do we know that we live in a society in which opposite sex relationships are expected (also known as "heteronormative" expectations)?
How is same sex orientation represented today in society? In texts?
What restrictions exist in today's society around homosexuality?
How do sexuality and sexual difference inform the way we are allowed to express our identities?
How are sexual difference and gender difference almost inseparable from each other in the U.S. today?
How are the boundaries around heterosexuality and homosexuality created, regulated, and contested?
How do the depictions of gender and sexual difference in texts provide clues about how power really does operate in our culture?
What is the role of body image and physique in sexualized and genderized lives?
How can we begin to eradicate the boundaries around heterosexuality and homosexuality?
What happens when we radically deprivilege the status of gender in traditional discourses?
Marxist Theory
How does society define heroism through the acquisition of material goods and wealth?
How do we know we live in a class-based society? Why is socioeconomic class so invisible in the U.S. today?
How is it unhealthy to ignore social stratification and social inequality in contemporary society?
Can an individual overcome barriers of socioeconomic class in society?
What forces determine the income an individual makes from work?
How do institutional economic forces, such as corporations, control individuals' lives through economic barriers?
How do economic and sociopolitical worldviews and methods of socioeconomic inquiry emerge in texts?
What materialist interpretations of history do texts offer?
How can texts become a dialectical view of social change and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism?
What is the relationship among forces of production, technology, social organization, and social progress?
How can we redefine our lives so that materialism is less important than the common good and individual spirituality?H
Postmodern Theory
How do we know that we live in a world that is divided into either/ or categories (also known as "binaries")?
In what ways do some people perceive the world in one way, while others perceive the world in the opposite way?
How do classifications such as male versus female, straight versus gay, white versus black, or imperial versus colonial frame our nation’s narrative?
How do the roles of language and power relations continue to divide our society into either/ or categories?
Can there really be one absolute truth? If not, how can we find middle ground between binary systems of beliefs?
What happens when individuals come to view their view of the world as a complex, multilayered system rather than one or the other category?
What happens when we view realities to be plural and relative and to be dependent on who the interested parties are and what their beliefs are?
How can we break free from a binary system in which one is either good or bad, black or white, with us or against us?
What happens when we think of all people as gray, or having shades of good and bad within them?
Need some more help? Go to "Literary Theory" from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://www.iep.utm.edu/literary/