This course provides a survey of contemporary literary and critical theory. It is organized around a series of "keywords" in literary studies that are of established or new resonance in the reading, interpretation, and discussion of texts. Such keywords include, but are not limited to, "dialectics", "ideology", "unconscious", "différance", "discourse", "Orientalism", "postmodernism", "race", "gender", "queer", "environment", and "digital". With each, we uncover their philosophical origins, trace their historical development, and consider their current usages. Throughout the semester, we draw on a range of literary and cultural texts to demonstrate the interpretative fecundity of such core theoretical concepts.