This course introduces students to the contexts within which literary works are created and interpreted, and gives them theoretical frameworks for their own interpretations. The course will place one or more literary texts into context by focusing on relevant historical backgrounds and critical reception. The course will also introduce a variety of interpretive approaches, and may include critical race theory, deconstruction, feminism, formalism, Marxism, new historicism, post-colonialist, psychoanalytic and reception theories. Each semester individual instructors will anchor the course in specific sub-topics, primary texts, cultures, and historical moments, depending on their areas of specialization.