Undergraduate Research Workshop
The Critical Theory Undergraduate Research Workshop is a student-led group that discusses critical, social, and political theory on a wide range of topics. Choosing a text to read and discuss for each meeting, we seek to critique texts outside of the typical curriculum, focusing on non-western and decolonial ideals as well as canonical but less taught texts as interlocutors.
Contact Henry Li (HenryLi2026@u.northwestern.edu) to join the group, learn more, and be added to the listserv. The workshop is convened by Henry Li (primary) and Jinhee Heo (secondary) for 2023-24. The workshop is sponsored by Professor Jeong Eun Annabel We, one of the original founders of the group.
History
The Critical Theory Research Workshop was founded in 2012 when three undergraduates - Rafael Vizcaíno, Jeong Eun Annabel We, and X. Joyce Fan - successfully sought funding from the Kaplan Institute in 2012-13 and garnered co-sponsorship from French, German, and Comparative Literary Studies. Graduate students signed up to serve as discussants in bi-weekly sessions. In 2013, the workshop invited an end of the year visiting speaker and hosted an associated workshop and dinner for those who participated throughout the year. Authors discussed included Butler, Deleuze, Fraser, Bataille, Derrida, Benjamin, Rorty, Arendt, Adorno and Horkheimer, and many more.
Check out what the original founders have to say about what makes the workshop so unique!
On the Critical Theory Undergraduate Research Workshop
On the Values of Critical Theory