This course is designed to broaden and deepen the students' understanding of cultural theories and to develop their ability to think critically about cultural issues through a sustained engagement with a selection of works by some of the major thinkers of the twentieth century. The questions raised in the course will concern the ways in which these theories have shaped contemporary research and pedagogical agendas, the negotiations and interventions they have enabled, their social and political contexts, and to what extent they can "travel" across cultures.