English 682: Recent Literary Criticism

Course Purpose: This course is intended to acquaint you with a variety of contemporary critical methodologies.
 

Course Requirements:  

Course grades will be based on a final exam (30%), a 10-12 page typed paper (40%), and your choice of either reading responses OR a take-home midterm (30%).
 

The Paper: You may write on any literary or cultural text (e.g. film). Your paper must employ one of the methodologies analyzed in the course and should demonstrate a firm grasp of that critical approach. Your paper should also reflect a mastery of the current secondary materials on the text you have chosen to analyze.
 

The Reading Responses (Optional): Reading responses should consist of a two page typed analysis of one of the essays from each week's reading assignments. Your responses should not summarize the reading but should engage it intellectually. In other words, your response on a particular essay should do one or more of the following: critique the essay, apply it to a literary or cultural text, or relate it to previous reading in the course. Also, if an essay proves exceptionally difficult, your response on that essay could present some focused, specific questions on points that you did not understand. Responses will be collected during the 2nd through the 9th weeks of the semester.

Attendance: Ideally, you will attend all class sessions. If you miss more than one class, you will fail the course. This policy also applies to auditors.

Text (available at the bookstore):  

Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan, eds. Literary Theory: An Anthology, Second Edition (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004)

Web Resources:

Assignments:  

Aug. 26: Introduction--Background Lecture: Overview of Current Theories  

September 2: Poststructuralism and Deconstruction:

First Response Paper Due

Jacques Derrida, "Differance," pp. 278-299

Barbara Johnson, "Writing," pp. 340-347

Sept. 9: Poststructuralism and Deconstruction:

Michel Foucault, "Discipline and Punish," pp. 549-566

Deleuze and Guattari, "A Thousand Plateaus," pp. 378-386

Sept. 16: Psychoanalysis:

Jacques Lacan, "The Mirror Stage...," pp. 441-446

van der Kolk and McFarlane, "The Black Hole of Trauma," pp. 487-502 

Sept. 23: Marxism

Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," pp. 693-702

John Fiske, "Culture, Ideology, Interpellation," pp. 1268-1273

Sept. 30: Historicisms:

Raymond Williams, "The Country and the City," pp. 508-532

Nancy Armstrong, "Some Call It Fiction," pp. 567-583

October 7: Feminism/Gender Studies

Judith Butler, "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution," pp. 900-911

Judith Halberstam, "Female Masculinity," pp. 935-956

Oct. 14 : Feminism/Gender Studies

Gloria Anzaldua, "Borderlands/La Frontera," pp. 1017-1030

Gayatri Spivak, "Three Women's Texts...," pp. 838-853

Oct 21: Week off  

Oct. 28: Queer Theory:

Take Home Midterm Due
Final Reading Response Due

Foucault, "The History of Sexuality," pp. 683-691

Eve Sedgwick, "Epistemology of the Closet," 912-921

Nov. 4:  Ethnic Studies/Critical Race Theory:

Ian F. Haney Lopez, "The Social Construction of Race," pp. 964-974

Toni Morrison, "Playing in the Dark," pp. 1005-1016 

Nov. 11: Postcolonial Theory/Transnational Studies:  

Ania Loomba, "Situating Colonial and Postcolonial Studies," pp. 1100-1111

Anne McClintock, "The Angel of Progress...," pp. 1185-1196

Nov. 18:  Postcolonial Theory/Transnational Studies:  

Edward Said, "Jane Austen and Empire," pp. 1112-1125

Jamaica Kincaid, "A Small Place," pp. 1224-1229

Nov. 25: Break

December 2:  Cultural Studies: Paper Due

Dick Hebdige, "Subculture: The Meaning of Style," pp. 1258-1267

Dec. 9: Final

Last Updated: August 6, 2004