Department of Literary Theory and Criticism is responsible for teaching the subjects on literary theory and literary criticism. The Department is also responsible for the subjects of the literary process, the literary movements, the aesthetics.
Personnel:
From the time the Faculty of Philology was established until it was renamed the Faculty of Literature and Language, the major of Literary Theory was under the Department of Vietnamese Literature and Literary Theory. In the early stages, the lecturers teaching this major were Prof. Le Dinh Ky, teacher Duong Trong Dat, teacher Do Huu Trong... Prof. Le Dinh Ky was the one who laid the foundation for training and researching Literary Theory at the Faculty, and was also the Head of the Department in the 80s of the last century.
Since 2007, due to the development needs of the Faculty, the major of Literary Theory was separated to establish the Department of Literary Theory and Criticism, with the task of teaching subjects of literary theory and criticism at the undergraduate level and training in Literary Theory at the doctoral level. Since 2015, the Department has been assigned the additional task of training in Literary Theory at the master's level.
Currently, the Department has five lecturers: Prof. Dr. Huynh Nhu Phuong, Assoc. Dr. Nguyen Thi Thanh Xuan, Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Huu Hieu, MSc. Ho Khanh Van, MSc. Le Ngoc Phuong. The Department also has the collaboration of many professors and scholars in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in teaching, conducting scientific research topics, guiding and grading theses and dissertations.
Some scientific topics at the National University and State levels that the Department is in charge of implementing are: Systematic research on literary principles; Poetics with the study of literary works and genres; Schools of Western literary criticism in the 20th century; Research, theory and literary criticism activities in the South from the end of the 19th century to 1954; The introduction of Western literary theories into South Vietnam in the period 1954-1975...
Typical textbooks and monographs compiled by lecturers in the Department: Artistic innovations in Xuan Dieu's poetry in the period 1932-1945, Textbook on Literary Works, Writers and Style (Associate Professor, Dr. Le Tien Dung); Vietnamese literary criticism in the first half of the 20th century, Japanese literature in Vietnam (Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Thi Thanh Xuan); Literary theory - introduction, Russian Formalism (Professor, Dr. Huynh Nhu Phuong). In addition to traditional literary theory issues, lecturers in the Department also invest in researching a number of modern literary schools such as: New Criticism, Sociological Criticism, Psychoanalytic Criticism, Structural and Deconstructive Criticism, Feminist Criticism, Postcolonial Criticism...