The Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory is an interdisciplinary program developed within the Graduate College and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

UIUC College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is the largest college in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, created in 1913 through the merger of the College of Literature and Arts and the College of Science. It has nationally ranked programs in chemistry, psychology and speech communications...

 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...

. It works to promote conversations among a range of departments in the humanities

Humanities

The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....

, social sciences

Social sciences

Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...

, and performing arts

Performing arts

The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...

 by organizing lectures, panel discussions, and conferences, as well as a yearly series of lectures on Modern Critical Theory

Critical theory

Critical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...

. The Unit is one of several dozen centers around the world devoted to critical theory.

Founded in 1981 under the leadership of Cary Nelson

Cary Nelson

Cary Nelson , professor of English and Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is the current president of the American Association of University Professors and a prominent scholar-activist....

, the Unit has promoted scholarly discussion and debate about topics such as poststructuralism, cultural studies

Cultural studies

Cultural studies is an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism. It generally concerns the political nature of contemporary culture, as well as its historical foundations, conflicts, and defining traits. It is, to this extent, largely distinguished from cultural...

, Marxism

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

, feminism

Feminism

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

, postcolonial theory

Postcolonialism

Post-colonialism is a specifically post-modern intellectual discourse that consists of reactions to, and analysis of, the cultural legacy of colonialism...

, and the politics of disciplinarity and knowledge production. In The Employment of English: Theory, Jobs, and the Future of Literary Studies, literary scholar Michael Berube

Michael Bérubé

Michael Bérubé is the Paterno Family Professor in Literature and Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Pennsylvania State University, where he teaches cultural studies and American literature...

 writes that "[b]y formally bringing together, through zero-time appointments, faculty members from disciplines engaged in some degree by theorized recursivity," the Unit for Criticism "has helped produce dialogue spoken in a kind of esperanto based in shared hermeneutic practices," performing an important interdisciplinary function within the university.
Books derived from Unit conferences, such as Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, and Cultural Studies have become landmarks of critical discourse in the academy. Although some criticized the books for being excessively theoretical and for what Terry Eagleton

Terry Eagleton

Terence Francis Eagleton FBA is a British literary theorist and critic, who is regarded as one of Britain's most influential living literary critics...

, in a review of Cultural Studies, called the “anything-goes-ism” of cultural studies, they provoked discussion about the nature of interdisciplinary work in the humanities and social sciences. Hayden White

Hayden White

Hayden White is a historian in the tradition of literary criticism, perhaps most famous for his work Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe...

 called Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture a "major event in the discourse of cultural criticism of our time," Timothy Brennan noted that Marxism was “already featured on the reading lists of cultural studies seminars across the country,” and Kristine L. Fitch wrote of Cultural Studies that “As an inquisitive stance from which to conduct research into a complex world of human beings and human problems, the book has a great deal to offer even when one does not entirely buy (as I do not) what cultural studies scholars do or how they do it.”

Over the years, guests of the Unit have included Linda Martín Alcoff

Linda Martín Alcoff

Linda Martín Alcoff is a philosopher at the City University of New York who specializes in epistemology, feminism, race theory and existentialism. She is currently the vice president of the APA, Eastern Division. She earned her PhD in Philosophy from Brown University...

, Perry Anderson

Perry Anderson

Perry Anderson is a British Leftist intellectual, historian, and political essayist. He is often identified with the post-1956 Western Marxism of the New Left in Europe. He is Professor of History and Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles and an editor of the New Left Review. He...

, Arjun Appadurai

Arjun Appadurai

Arjun Appadurai is a contemporary social-cultural anthropologist focusing on modernity and globalization, based in New York.Appadurai was born in Mumbai , India and educated in India before coming to the United States. He graduated from St...

, Étienne Balibar

Étienne Balibar

Étienne Balibar is a French Marxist philosopher. After the death of his teacher Louis Althusser, Balibar quickly became the leading exponent of French Marxist philosophy.- Life and work :...

, Tony Bennett

Tony Bennett (sociologist)

Tony Bennett is an Australian academic, working in the areas of sociology, cultural studies, and cultural history.His works include The Birth of the Museum, a study of the birth and cultural function of the modern museum, and Outside Literature...

, Lauren Berlant

Lauren Berlant

Lauren Berlant is the George M. Pullman Professor of English at the University of Chicago, where she has been teaching since 1984. Berlant received her Ph.D. from Cornell University...

, Michael Bérubé

Michael Bérubé

Michael Bérubé is the Paterno Family Professor in Literature and Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Pennsylvania State University, where he teaches cultural studies and American literature...

, Homi Bhabha

Homi K. Bhabha

Homi K. Bhabha is the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of English and American Literature and Language, and the Director of the Humanities Center at Harvard University. He is one of the most important figures in contemporary post-colonial studies, and has coined a number of the field's neologisms and...

, Timothy Brennan, Wendy Brown, Pheng Cheah, James Clifford

James Clifford

James Clifford is an historian and Professor in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Clifford and Hayden White were among the first faculty directly appointed to the History of Consciousness Ph.D. program in 1978, which was originally the only...

, William E. Connolly

William E. Connolly

William E. Connolly is a political theorist known for his work on democracy and pluralism. He is the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. His 1974 work The Terms of Political Discourse won the 1999 Benjamin Lippincott Award.-Biography:Connolly was raised in...

, Tim Dean

Tim Dean

Tim Dean is a British philosopher and writer, notable in the field of contemporary queer theory. He is the author of Gary Snyder and the American Unconscious , Beyond Sexuality , and Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking , all published by the University of Chicago Press,...

, Lisa Duggan, Terry Eagleton

Terry Eagleton

Terence Francis Eagleton FBA is a British literary theorist and critic, who is regarded as one of Britain's most influential living literary critics...

, Roberto Esposito, Grant Farred, James Ferguson

James Ferguson (anthropologist)

James Ferguson is an American born Anthropologist. He is known for his work on the politics and anthropology of international development, specifically his critical stance . He is currently chair of the Anthropology Department at Stanford University...

, Nancy Fraser

Nancy Fraser

Nancy Fraser is an American critical theorist, currently the Henry A. and Louise Loeb Professor of Political and Social Science and professor of philosophy at The New School in New York City...

, Simon Frith

Simon Frith

Simon Frith is a British sociologist, and former rock critic, who specializes in popular music culture. He is currently Tovey Chair of Music at University of Edinburgh.-Background:...

, Jane Gallop

Jane Gallop

Jane Anne Gallop is an American professor who since 1992 has served as Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she has taught since 1990.- Education :Gallp earned a B.A...

, Paul Gilroy

Paul Gilroy

-Biography:Born in the East End of London to Guyanese and English parents , he was educated at University College School and obtained his bachelor's degree at Sussex University in 1978. He moved from there to Birmingham University where he completed his Ph.D...

, Gerald Graff

Gerald Graff

Gerald Graff is a professor of English and Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He received his B.A. in English from the University of Chicago in 1959 and his Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Stanford University in 1963...

, John Guillory, Judith Halberstam

Judith Halberstam

Judith Halberstam, also Jack Halberstam, is Professor of English and Director of The Center for Feminist Research at University of Southern California. Halberstam was an Associate Professor in the Department of Literature at the University of California at San Diego before working at USC...

, Catherine Hall

Catherine Hall

Catherine Hall is a feminist historian from Great Britain. Since 2009 she has been Professor of Modern British Social and Cultural History at University College London...

, Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)

Stuart Hall is a cultural theorist and sociologist who has lived and worked in the United Kingdom since 1951. Hall, along with Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams, was one of the founding figures of the school of thought that is now known as British Cultural Studies or The Birmingham School of...

, Donna Haraway

Donna Haraway

Donna J. Haraway is currently a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, United States...

, Dick Hebdige

Dick Hebdige

Richard "Dick" Hebdige is an expatriate British media theorist and sociologist most commonly associated with the study of subcultures, and its resistance against the mainstream of society.-Life and career:...

, Andreas Huyssen

Andreas Huyssen

Andreas Huyssen is the Villard Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he has taught since 1986...

, Fredric Jameson

Fredric Jameson

Fredric Jameson is an American literary critic and Marxist political theorist. He is best known for his analysis of contemporary cultural trends—he once described postmodernism as the spatialization of culture under the pressure of organized capitalism...

, Martin Jay

Martin Jay

Martin Jay is the Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a renowned Intellectual Historian and his research interests have been groundbreaking in connecting history with other academic and intellectual activities, such as the Critical Theory of...

, Lynne Joyrich, Paul W. Kahn

Paul W. Kahn

Paul W. Kahn is The Robert W. Winner Professor of Law and the Humanities at Yale Law School and the Director of the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights....

, Ernesto Laclau

Ernesto Laclau

Ernesto Laclau is an Argentine political theorist often described as post-Marxist.He studied History in Buenos Aires, graduating from the Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires in 1964, and received a PhD from Essex University in 1977.Since the 1970s he has been Professor of Political Theory at the...

, Christopher Lane

Christopher Lane

Christopher Lane is an author whose books include the Inupiat Eskimo Mystery series.-Inupiat Eskimo Mystery series:* Elements Of A Kill * Season Of Death * A Shroud Of Midnight Sun * Silent As A Hunter...

, Henri Lefebvre

Henri Lefebvre

Henri Lefebvre was a French sociologist, Marxist intellectual, and philosopher, best known for his work on dialectics, Marxism, everyday life, cities, and space.-Biography:...

, David Lloyd

David Lloyd (academic)

David Lloyd is a professor of literature. He holds a B.A. , an M.A. , and a PhD in Literature and Colonialism, all from Cambridge University...

, Saba Mahmood

Saba Mahmood

Saba Mahmood is an associate professor of social cultural anthropology at UC Berkeley.- Biography :She is the author of Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject in which she theorizes the concept of habitus from a genealogy that begins with Aristotle and extends into the...

, Toril Moi

Toril Moi

Toril Moi is James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at Duke University. Previously she held positions as a lecturer in French at the University of Oxford and as Director of the Center for Feminist Research at the University of Bergen, Norway...

, Franco Moretti

Franco Moretti

Franco Moretti is an Italian literary scholar, trained as a Marxist critic, whose work focuses on the history of the novel as a "planetary form". He has written five books, Signs Taken for Wonders , The Way of the World , Modern Epic , Atlas of the European Novel, 1800-1900 , and Graphs, Maps,...

, Chantal Mouffe

Chantal Mouffe

Chantal Mouffe is a Belgian political theorist.-Work:Chantal Mouffe studied at Louvain, Paris and Essex and has worked in many universities throughout the world . She has also held visiting positions at Harvard, Cornell, Princeton and the CNRS...

, Jeff Nunokawa, Paul Rabinow

Paul Rabinow

Paul Rabinow is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California , Director of the Anthropology of the Contemporary Research Collaboratory , and former Director of Human Practices for the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center...

, Bruce Robbins, Andrew Ross, Joan Scott, Ella Shohat

Ella Shohat

Professor Ella Habiba Shohat is Professor of Cultural Studies at New York University, and has taught, lectured and written extensively on issues having to do with Eurocentrism and Orientalism, as well as with postcolonial and transnational approaches to Cultural Studies...

, Kaja Silverman

Kaja Silverman

Kaja Silverman is an American film theorist and art historian. She received her Ph.D. in English from Brown University. She taught at Yale University, Trinity College, Simon Fraser University, Brown University, the University of Rochester and the University of California, Berkeley, before joining...

, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is an Indian literary critic, theorist and a University Professor at Columbia University. She is best known for the essay "Can the Subaltern Speak?", considered a founding text of postcolonialism, and for her translation of Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology. She...

, Michael Szalay, James Vernon, Gauri Viswanathan, Priscilla Wald, Michael Warner

Michael Warner

Michael Warner is a literary critic, social theorist, and Seymour H. Knox Professor of English Literature and American Studies at Yale University. He also writes for Art Forum, The Nation, The Advocate, and The Village Voice...

, Cornel West

Cornel West

Cornel Ronald West is an American philosopher, author, critic, actor, civil rights activist and prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America....

, and Patricia J. Williams

Patricia J. Williams

Patricia J. Williams is an American legal scholar and a proponent of critical race theory, a school of legal thought that emphasizes race as a fundamental determinant of the American legal system....

.

From 1981-1983 the Unit was directed by Cary Nelson. From 1984-2003 the Unit was directed Peter K. Garrett, Professor of English.http://www.english.illinois.edu/people/pgarrett From 2003-2009, the Unit was directed by Michael Rothberg, Professor of English http://www.english.illinois.edu/people/mpr and current Director of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies Initiative http://www.jewishculture.illinois.edu/programs/holocaust also at the University of Illinois. In Fall 2009, Lauren M. E. Goodlad,http://criticism.english.illinois.edu/directorGoodlad.htm after a year as Interim Director in 2008-9, became the Unit’s current director.

Conferences and symposia

• Freedom and Its Discontents (2011)
• Bios: Life, Death, Politics (2010)
• Mad World: Sex, Politics, Style and the 1960s (2010)
• Feminist Futures (2009)
• Comparative Human Rights: Literature, Art, Politics (2009)
• Decolonizations: Subaltern Studies and Indigenous Critical Theory (2008)
• Poetry, Politics & the Profession: A Tribute to Cary Nelson (2006)
• States of Welfare (2006)
• Rethinking Secularism in an Age of Belief (2005)
• Fetishizing the Free Market: The Cultural Politics of Neoliberalism (2005)
• Postcolonial Studies and Beyond (2002)

Books and special issues derived from Unit conferences

• Mad World: Sex, Politics, Style, and the 1960s (forthcoming)
• Between Subalternity and Indigeneity (Interventions: International Journal of Postocolonial Studies, vol. 13, iss. 1, 2011)
• States of Welfare (Occasion, vol. 2, 2010)
• Comparative Human Rights (Journal of Human Rights, vol. 9, no. 2, 2010)
• Cary Nelson and the Struggle for the University (SUNY Press, 2009)
• Postcolonial Studies and Beyond (Duke UP, 2005)
• Disciplinarity at the Fin de Siècle (Princeton UP, 2001)
• Disciplinarity and Dissent in Cultural Studies (Routledge, 1996)
• Higher Education Under Fire (Routledge, 1994)
• Cultural Studies (Routledge, 1991)
• Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (U of Illinois P, 1988)

External links

• The Unit for Criticism's official website
• Kritik, the Unit's official blog