Why Study Global Culture and Theory in the Literature Program at Duke?
The Global Culture and Theory Major and Minor focuses on the study of cultural objects from around the world. What do we mean by cultural objects? Literature, artworks, photography, film, TV series, fashion, architecture, digital culture, and AI, to name a few. In this context we pay close attention to language, visual practices, social interactions, and sound, looking at their relationship to political control and economic power.
Global Culture and Theory provides a rigorous interdisciplinary education for students across a broad spectrum of fields and approaches from the humanities and qualitative social sciences. We make use of multiple disciplines and approaches that are theoretical in nature and draw from a variety of traditions and schools of thought. These include literary studies, political philosophy, gender studies, psychoanalysis, the study of race and racialization, postcolonial and decolonial studies, science studies, media theory and philosophy of technology.
Our GCT Majors and Minors become well-versed in critically analyzing and making sense of the complexities of the present world.
Students in our major regularly pursue senior honors theses and conduct independent studies with departmental faculty members to further engage their intellectual curiosity while honoring their research skills. Learn more about our honors program and some of the award-winning work our students have accomplished.