The study of what literature means, both as a category (what counts as “literature”) and as a subject (how should this text be interpreted).

Literary Theory

Literary criticism or Literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. These forms of criticism focus on the work's content along with opinions or insight from research. Literary criticism is usually heavily influenced by literary theories; however, there is controversy on how distinct literary criticism is from literary theories. 

Literary Criticism 

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This theory examines and critiques societies and cultures and looks at social issues and structures that lead to inequality. It identifies the people who can suppress this inequality and outlines the steps needed to reach human liberation. 

Critical Theory

Literature most broadly is all written work in addition to “oral literature”. 

Literature

The process of listening and considering ideas from as many perspectives as possible to reason a conclusion and inform an strategic academic plan. 

Critical Inquiry Theory in Education

Learning science an interdisciplinary field that works to further our understanding of learning as well as to engage in the design and implementation of learning innovations. Contributing fields include cognitive science, computer science, educational psychology, anthropology, and applied linguistics. 

Learning Science

Critical Race Theory is an interdisciplinary movement made up of activists and scholars working to understand and change the relationships between race, racism, and power. 

Critical Race Theory (CRT)

Queer theory is a field of critical theory that can include different meanings, but most broadly referes to a lens that centers the abnormal (the queer) in order to demonstrate the socially constructed boundaries of the normal. 

Queer theory

Critical Practices in Literature 

Cultural Studies analyze the political dynamics of contemporary culture, such as "pop culture" and its historical basis. Cultural studies researchers review how cultural practices connect to wider systems of power associated with or operating through, social phenomena, including ideology, class structures, national formations, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, and generation.

Cultural Studies

A major critique of the current disability studies discipline relates to its essentialist and binary approach to understanding disability and the subjective disability experience. 

Disability Studies and Intersectionality


The critical perspective emerged in the 1970's with roots in Black Feminism. 

History of Critical Perspective in Disabillity Studies

Black feminist thought understands race to play a role in whether society labels an individual as a woman. Thus, the term intersectionality was coined in 1989 to explain how power and status contribute to social organization and understanding. 


19th Century Black Feminist History Influenced the Inception of Intersectionality 

Intersectionality examines the experiences of people who are experiencing discrimination on the basis of two or more marginalized identities at the same time, and how this differs from experiencing discrimnination on the basis of these identities individually.  Because of this depending on context, we all have areas where we experience privilege, as well as areas of oppression

For example, the stereotypes or preconceived notions held about black women are not merely a combination of those held about black people and those held about women, but a unique intersection of racism and sexism that black women experience differently from either black men or white women.

Intersectionality

Disability studies resaerch often neglects the presence of an individual's identity which can have major influence over their subjective reality and reinforces oppressive systems. 

Critical Perspective of Disability Studies

Add reference nodes for Literature as children here.

Literature References

A type of communication that usually describes categories of art or entertainment based on agreed-upon conventions.


*Works can fit into multiple genres 

Genre

An ancient human tradition found everywhere in the world. The earliest poetry is believed to have been recited or sung as a way of remembering history, genealogy, and law.

Oral Literature/ Oral Tradition 

Around the 4th millennium BC, the complexity of trade and administration in Mesopotamia allowed writing to become a dependable method of recording transactions. Although, in both ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica, "writing may have already emerged because of the need to record historical and environmental events." 

The History of Writing

Types of Literature

The research literature in any given scientific field consists of all the published research in that area. It primarily includes articles in professional journals and scholarly books, while excluding sources intended for the general public, such as self-help books, dictionary entries, and websites, which lack rigorous peer review.

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