English 303-02 – Critical Approaches to Literature – Spring 2011
Class Logistics Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:30- 4:45pm, location MHRA 3204
Instructor Info Name-Daniel Hutchins; Office-MHRA 3106
Email: ; Phone-585-269-4211 (cell)
Office Hours- MW 10:30am – 11:30am and by appointment
Required Texts
All of these should be available at the campus bookstore:
(1) Literary Theory: An Anthology (2004), eds. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan
(2) The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism(1995)
Basic Course Spiel The main goal of English 303 is to introduce you to a variety of critical approaches and methods that have been used over time to aid people in the study of literature as well as to get you familiar and comfortable enough with these different approaches so that you can, whether in future English classes here at UNCG or in graduate school or in the world at large, draw upon them at will and speak and write about them intelligently. To this end, we will survey certain important forms of literary and cultural theory and consider some techniques for achieving a critical appreciation of literary art. “Critical appreciation” means having smart, sophisticated reasons for liking whatever literature you like, and being able to articulate those reasons for other people, especially in writing. Vital for critical appreciation is the ability to ‘interpret’ a piece of literature, which basically means coming up with a cogent, interesting account of what a piece of lit might mean, what it’s trying to do to/for the reader, what technical choices the author’s made in order to try to achieve the effects she wants, and so on.
Class Format English 303 is a seminar. This is a discussion-based course; it is not a lecture course. What we learn will be driven primarily by the questions, comments, ideas and energies that you bring to our discussions. In other words, we will learn literary theory by actively engaging it and each other in our regular meetings.
Writing Assignments This course has a Writing Intensive (WI) marker. We will be drafting four (4) formal essays together and each essay will have a class period devoted to its in-class peer review. Your conscientious and comprehensive feedback during these peer-review sessions will count towards a portion of your overall grade. In the fullness of time (i.e. well before the first peer review session), I will distribute a handout explaining what I expect from a successful peer review. The principle goal of these essays will be to demonstrate that you understand and can accurately summarize and parse out one of the lit theory excerpts we will be reading together. As we approach the due date for the first draft of essay 1, I will distribute a handout that explains in more detail what I expect to see in these essays. It’s expected that these essays will represent your very best, most careful and considered work.
Presentations A percentage of your final grade will depend on your ability to lead class discussion (either solo or with a partner, as demanded by the text you’re presenting on). I will distribute a handout that explains in specific detail what I expect from your presentations.
Course Rules and Procedures
(1)Attendance at each class meeting is required. An absence will be excused only if it’s negotiated in advance or if there is a medical emergency. If necessary, you will be permitted one free unexcused absence; each additional unexcused absence will have an impact on your participation grade.
(2) You are required to do every last iota of the reading and writing assigned, exactly in the format requested, and it needs to be totally done by the time class starts. There is no such thing as ‘falling a little behind’ in the course reading; either you’ve done your homework or you haven’t. Chronic lack of preparation (which, let’s face it, is easy to spot) will lower your final letter grade.
(3)Even in a seminar course, it seems a little silly to require participation. Some students who are cripplingly shy, or who can’t always formulate their best thoughts and questions in the rapid back-and-forth of a group discussion, are nevertheless good, serious students. On the other hand, our class can’t really function if there isn’t student participation – it will become me lecturing for 75 minutes, which (trust me) is something we all want to avoid. There is, therefore, a small percentage of the final grade that will concern the quantity and quality of your participation in class discussions. But the truth is that I’m way more concerned about creating an in-class environment in which all students feel totally free to say what they think, ask questions, object, criticize, request clarification, return to a previous subject, respond to someone else’s response, etc. Clinically shy students, or those whose best, most pressing questions and comments occur to them only in private, should do their discussing with me solo, outside class. If my scheduled office hours don’t work for you, please call or email me so that we can make an appointment for a different meeting time.
(4)Your four formal essays must be typed and printed in regular font. They must be double-spaced, with one-inch margins all around, and stapled. The first page of your paper should have a title – all papers should have a title – as well as your name, the course and the date. Your last name and page number must appear in the upper-right corner of p.2 and every page thereafter.
(5)An extension on an essay will be granted only under truly extraordinary circumstances, and only if the extension is negotiated in advance – not the day or even the day before the paper is due. Having too much work or exams in other courses is not a valid reason to ask for an extension.
(6)Part of your grade for written work will depend on your document’s presentation. ‘Presentation’ has to do with evidence of care, of adult competence in written English, and of compassion for your reader. Your essays (even drafts that are brought to class to be workshopped on peer-review days and especially, of course, revised drafts that you’re turning in for a grade) must be proofread and edited for obvious typos and misspellings, basic errors in grammar/usage/punctuation, and so on. You are welcome to contact me with questions about proofreading, grammar, usage, etc., as you’re working on revising and editing your essays. But the papers that appear sloppy, semiliterate, or incoherent will be heavily penalized, and in severe cases you’ll be required to resubmit a sanitized version in order to receive any credit for the essay at all.
(7)You’re required to bring all relevant materials with you to each class session. Please don’t show up to class without a copy of the text(s) we will be discussing.
(8)Important! Academic Honesty.All work that you do for this class must be original, meaning that you alone are responsible for producing it. Plagiarism, the use of an idea or phrase from another source without proper recognition of that source, will not be tolerated. Copying or obtaining assignments from another student is also a form of plagiarism, as is cutting and pasting material from elsewhere (even if you rearrange the words or substitute synonyms). If you commit any act of academic dishonesty, you will fail the course. Please read the UNCG policy regarding academic honesty for all incidents of plagiarism:
Weighted Determinants of Final Grade
Essays 1 - 4: 20% each
Class presentation: 10%
Attendance, preparation, quality of class participation, quality of peer review, alacrity of carriage: 10%
(Grading scale breakdown):
A / 95 = Mind-blowingly good
A-/ 92 = Very good
B+ / 88 = Good
B / 85 = High-average
B-/82 = Average
C+/78=Low-average
C/75= Noticeably subpar
C-/72 or below = Direly poor, we need to talk
Class and Reading Schedule:
Please Note: Reading assignments appear the day they are due. All reading assignments will be excerpts of the originals taken from Literary Theory: An Anthology (2004) by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan unless otherwise specified.
Week 1
Tues 1/11: First day of class. Going over syllabus and expectations for the semester. What is theory? Some Poetry. Writing Intensive Requirements. Peer Review.
Thurs 1/13: Introduction by Rivkin and Ryan, “Formalisms.” Cleanth Brooks: ”The Formalist Critics” and “The Language of Paradox.”
Week 2
Tues 1/18: Rivkin and Ryan intro: “The Implied Order: Structuralism.” Ferdinand de Saussure: “Course in General Linguistics.” Roman Jakobson: “Two Aspects of Language.” (presentations 1 & 2)
Thurs 1/20: Roland Barthes: “Mythologies.” (presentation 3 x2)
Week 3
Tues 1/25: Rivkin and Ryan, Intro: “Language and Action.” J.L. Austin: “How to do Things With Words.” Immanuel Kant, “Transcendental Aesthetic” (pres 4 & 5)
Thurs 1/27: Rivkin and Ryan Intro for Part Five: “Strangers to Ourselves: Psychoanalysis.” Sigmund Freud: “On the Interpretation of Dreams,” (pres 6 x2)
Week 4
Tues 2/1: Jacques Lacan: “The Mirror Stage” & “The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious” (presentations 7 & 8)
Thurs 2/3: First Draft of Paper 1 (3-4 pp) due in class. In-Class Peer Review
Week 5
Tues 2/8: [Final draft of paper 1 due at the beginning of class] Rivkin and Ryan Intro for Part Seven: “Starting From Zero.” Explicatory essay on Ideology (.pdf).
Karl Marx: “The German Ideology,” “Capital.” (presentations 9 and 10)
Thurs 2/10: Gramsci and Althusser (.pdf) (presentation 11 x2)
Week 6
Tues 2/15 Slavoj Zizek: “The Sublime Object of Ideology.” (pres 12 x2)
Thurs 2/17: In-class screening: Zizek documentary
Week 7
Tues 2/22: Rivkin and Ryan Intro for Part Four: “Introductory Deconstruction.” Jacques Derrida, “Différance.” (pres 13 x2)
Thurs 2/24: First Draft of Paper 2 (3-4 pp) due in class. In-Class Peer Review
Week 8
Tues 3/1: In-class screening: Derrida documentary. [Final draft of paper 2 due in class]
Thurs 3/3: Class Cancelled
Week 9
Tues 3/8: No Class. Spring Break
Thurs 3/10: No Class. Spring Break
Week 10
Tues 3/15: Rivkin and Ryan Intro to Part Eight, “Feminist Paradigms.” Hélène Cixous, “The Newly Born Woman” (from part 4). Luce Irigaray, “The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine” (pres 14 and 15)
Thurs 3/17: Judith Butler: “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution.” (16 x2)
Week 11
Tues 3/22: In-class screening: Paris is Burning, documentary
Thurs 3/24: First Draft of Paper 3 (3-4 pp) is due. In-class Peer Review.
Week 12
Tues 3/29: [Revised Draft of Paper 3 due at the beginning of Class] Rivkin and Ryan Intro to Part Eleven, “Without Shadows: Literature on a World Scale.” Homi Bhabha, “Signs Taken for Wonders” (presentation 17)
Thurs 3/31: Edward Said, Orientalism (excerpts .pdf) (presentation 18)
Week 13
Tues 4/5: Robert Young, “Subjectivity and History: Derrida in Algeria” in Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. (.pdf) (presentation 19 x2)
Thurs 4/7: Class cancelled
Week 14
Tues 4/12: Michel Foucault (.pdf) (presentation 20 x2)
Thurs 4/14: First Draft of Paper 4 (3-4 pp) is due. In-class Peer Review.
Week 15
Tues 4/19: [Revised Draft of Paper 4 due at the beginning of class]
In-class screening of Jaws
Thursday 4/21: Frederic Jameson on Jaws (.pdf)