CTI Statement of Purpose

Given the above intellectual aims, our most basic project has been, and continues to be, to further the work of critical theory through our own collaborative efforts, and with the cooperation of extramural scholars whom we invite to make presentations at UCI.

Many questions still remain unanswered. Most pressing among these are the consequences for the university as an institution, and for the different disciplines that constitute it, of the critical analysis we have undertaken. How does this kind of analysis affect the way texts are taught or the choice of what is to be taught? How do worldwide globalization, privatization, and corporatization affect the structure of the university as well as of particular research groups and institutes?

The work of the Critical Theory Institute keeps before it the question of what might be meant by successful collaborative research in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The model of collective research in science is familiar enough. The question remains whether procedures that work in the sciences work equally well in the Humanities and Social Sciences. We have experimented with various forms of collective research, for example discussing together important work already written on a particular topic we have chosen as a focus, or discussing together the work of an invited speakers.

Recently we have taken our collaborative work to a different level. In particular we have built a nework of international affiliations with other Theory Institutes and scholars working prominently in critical theory. In 2000 we co-hosted an international conference in Beijing, “The Future of Literary Theory in China and the World.” In the coming years we are planning additional collaborative events with foreign scholars and institutions including an international conference on Derrida and Deleuze that we will host at UCI in the Spring of 2002.