LT 900 the Study of Literature Today 2012-2013

LT 900 The Study of Literature Today 2012-2013

Maria Cristina Fumagalli

WEEK2 (12 Oct) MCF Introduction – The Study of Literature Today

Terry Eagleton, ‘What is Literature?’ and ‘The Rise of English’, in Literary Theory: An Introduction (Blackwell, 1983), pp.1-46

Edwidge Danticat, ‘Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work’, in Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work (New York: Vintage, 2011), pp.1-20.

[Both in your Module Reader to be found in the general office. Please note that the Module Reader also contains copies of articles for the entire module]

WEEK 3 (19 Oct) MCF Beowulf (Seamus Heaney's translation, 1999)

George Steiner, Introduction to The Penguin Book of Modern Verse Translation, ed. by George Steiner (Penguin, 1966), 21-35.

Seamus Heaney, “Introduction,” Beowulf: A New Translation (Faber, 1999) pp. ix-xxx.

Seamus Heaney, “Through-Other Places, Through-Other Times: The Irish Poet and Britain,” in Finders / Keepers: Selected Prose 1971-2001 (London Faber & Faber, 2002), pp. 364-382.

Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy (Routledge, 1982), pp. 10-15; 31-67.

Terry Eagleton, “Hasped and Hooped and Hirpling,” London Review of Books, 11 November 1999. [This will be made available by MCF].

WEEK 4 (26 Oct) AE/MCF William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice + The Merchant of Venice (Michael Radford dir 2004 –screening to be confirmed) + Julia Pascal, The Shylock Play (Oberon Books, 2007).

René Girard, ‘“To Entrap the Wisest”: a Reading of The Merchant of Venice’ in Literature and Society: Selected Papers from the English Institute, ed. by Edward Said, (Hopkins, 1980), pp. 100-119.

Jonathan Freedland, ‘A Very Jewish Villain’ in The Guardian, 9th December 2004

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2004/dec/09/religion.film

‘The quality of Shakespeare’ – The Guardian Letters

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2004/dec/11/guardianletters2

Michael Radford, ‘Shakespeare and the Jews’ (http://www.landmarktheatres.com/mn/wsmerchantofvenice.htm)

An interview with Michael Radford http://www.jewish-theatre.com/visitor/article_display.aspx?articleID=1139

Elizabeth Fowler, ‘Shylock’s Virtual Injuries’, in Shakespeare Studies 34 (2006) pp. 56 – 65 . [Journal is available online via Library Catalogue]

Stephen Greenblatt, ‘Laughter at the Scaffold’, Will In The World (Jonathan Cape, 2004) pp. 277 – 287.
Arnold Wesker, ‘Preface’ to The Merchant (Henschel Verlag, 1977), pp. iL-Liv.

Arnold Wesker, ‘Explanations or Impositions: Thoughts on Trevor Nunn’s Production of The Merchant of Venice, Cottesloe Theatre, August 1999. Available from Wesker’s website: http://www.arnoldwesker.com/

You can also look at Arnold Wesker’s play The Merchant (Methuen Drama; Rev Ed edition 1983)

WEEK 5 (2 Nov) SO/MCF Green Writing

Jeffrey Lockwood, "Baring my soles," in Prairie Soul: Finding Grace in the Earth beneath my Feet (Boston : Skinner House Books, 2004) pp. 19-32.
Annie Proulx, "A Year of Birds: at Home on the North Platte River ," in Harpers Magazine, Dec 2010, pp. 47-58.

WEEK 6 (9 Nov) JL/MCF Jonathan Lichtenstein, Darkness (2011) (to be provided)

More secondary readings to be confirmed

WEEK 7 (16 Nov) SC/MCF Monica Ali, Brick Lane (2003) + Brick Lane (dir. Sarah Gavron, 2007)

Jane Hiddleston, 'Shapes and Shadows: (Un)veiling the Immigrant in Monica Ali's Brick Lane', The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, vol. 40, no. 1 (2005), pp. 57-72. [Journal is available online via Library Catalogue]
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, 'Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses', in Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, ed. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (London: Harvester Wheatsheat, 1993), pp. 197-221.
Kobena Mercer, 'Black Art and the Burden of Representation', in Welcome to the Jungle (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 233-258.

WEEK 8 (23 Nov) OR/MCF Toni Morrison's Love (2003)

Note: the book-length studies below are useful for overall approaches to Morrison’s work, rather than Love specifically. All the articles on the novel at hand can be found through Literature Online (LION).

Linden Peach, Toni Morrison (Macmillan, 2000)

Jill Matus, Toni Morrison (Manchester UP, 1998)

Nancy J. Peterson (ed.), Toni Morrison: Critical and Theoretical Approaches (Johns Hopkins UP, 1997)

Tessa Roynon, ‘A New “Romen” Empire: Toni Morrison’s Love and the Classics,’ in Journal of American Studies, 41.1 (2007), pp.31-47

Megan Sweeney, ‘“Something Rogue”: Commensurability, Commodification, Crime, and Justice in Toni Morrison’s Later Fiction,’ in Modern Fiction Studies, 52.2 (2006), pp.440-469.

Anissa Janine Wardi, ‘A Laying-on of Hands: Toni Morrison and the Materiality of Love,’ in MELUS, 30.3 (2005), pp.201-18.

WEEK 9 (30 Nov) MCF Matthew Pearl, Dante Club (2003)

WEEK 10 (7 Dec) PW Derek Walcott, The Prodigal (2004)

Derek Walcott, ‘What the Twilight Say’, in What the Twilight Says: Essays (Faber: 1998), pp. 3-35.

Derek Walcott, “The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory,” in What the Twilight Says: Essays (Faber: 1998), pp. 65-86 also available at nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1992/walcott-interview.html This site includes an interview with Derek Walcott. There are other useful links: for example you can listen to him delivering his Nobel Speech or talking to the BBC.

Please check the following website on Salgado’s work (some of his photographs inspired parts of The Prodigal): http://www.terra.com.br/sebastiaosalgado/

Derek Walcott’s interview with S. Hall in ‘Derek Walcott: Poet of the Island’, Arena, BBC 2 January 1993 (screening to be confirmed).

Edward Baugh, “Homecoming: The Prodigal,” in Derek Walcott (Cambridge UP, 2006), pp.222-229.

WEEK 11 (14 Dec) –essay preparation