English 495.01/511.01 Spring 2002
Studies in Literary Criticism: Contemporary Critical Theory and Practice
12:30-1:45 Tues.-Thurs UCC 332
Instructor: Stephan Flores
Brink 125
Office hours: TTH 10:30-11:30 and by appt.
885-7419; 5-6156
This course presents an advanced introduction to twentieth-century literary
theory, including brief discussions of formalism and structuralism, and extended
study of post-structuralism(s) and material cultural analysis, particularly
deconstruction, psychoanalytic theory, Marxism, feminism and gender analyses,
and historical contexts of interpretation. These theoretical frameworks offer
various means to engage with—among a range of issues and topics--the terms
and relations among desire, power, history, representation (particularly the
figurative turns of language), texts and identities. These materials and our
discussions may also prompt us to reflect on how our primary interests as readers
(scholars, writers, teachers) might be considered and changed through such perspectives
and practices. The Rivkin and Ryan anthology provides a solid, challenging collection
of "primary" figures and texts; Sarup's book presents a trenchant
introduction to post-structuralism and postmodernism; and the critical casebook
on Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, along with possibilities for
exploring other short fiction by James (we’ll see!) shall provide literary
and critical points of focus and reference.
No midterm or final exam, but steady reading and much emphasis on thoughtful
writing in focused, relatively succinct writing assignments, plus an exploratory
essay and a longer critical/research essay or project. As always, we'll proceed
through much discussion, and you'll select the topics of your longer essays
or critical projects within the contexts of our materials.
Required texts:
James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw: A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism,
ed. P. Beidler (Bedford/St.Martins,1995).
Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan, eds. Literary Theory: An Anthology (Blackwell,1998).
Sarup, Madan. An Introductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism,
second edition (U.Georgia P, 1993).
Additional primary and secondary works on library reserve.
Recommended:
Bertens, Hans. Literary Theory: The Basics (Routledge, 2001)
Carpenter, Scott. Reading Lessons: An Introduction to Theory (2000)
Culler, Jonathan. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford
UP, 1997)
James, Henry. Selected Tales. Ed. John Lyon. (Penguin, 2001)
The Johns Hopkins guide to literary theory and criticism (1994)
Requirements:
1. Fifteen thesis (driven) statements that provide a one-sentence summary of
a projected essay’s argument, or at times a summary of an actual essay’s
argument. The thesis sentence must be posed in response to a question or problem
that is either explicitly stated or clearly implied. These thesis statements
correspond to texts under discussion, and shall help to guide some of our class
discussion. In addition to providing a copy of the thesis sentence in class
to me, each student will be required to send a copy of the sentence (revised
if you wish) to me in the body of an email message (sflores@uidaho.edu) to be
distributed to the class within 24 hours following the class meeting.
2. Five critical response-type writing assignments (these vary from 450 to 750
words, single-spaced, titled) that prompt you to identify and to address interpretive
and critical issues presented by selected readings and related scholarship.
Your observations and analyses should be succinct and sharply focused, with
potential for substantial further development. Your responses should emphasize
issues of critical analysis and judgment, and they shall often be used in class
to invite dialogue on the question or problem. The problems and forms of these
assignments shall vary, including—at times—some choice of methods
and approach but typically focused and developed briefly through a thesis-support
structure. For example, at least one response shall require a two-part structure
comprised of a 200 word abstract of the text in question followed by 350 words
on the primary strengths and limitations of the particular text or critical
position/theory. Another option may take the form of an informal letter that
explains the essay or article’s importance, its impact on you, and how
strongly you would recommend it to others. Another mode responds to an essay
on The Turn of the Screw or different critical theories through the form
of a hypothetical debate or a comparison between different positions. The final
response shall also serve as a prospectus for the longer essay project. These
assignments are due at the beginning of class on the due date. You should be
prepared to talk briefly about your methods and claims to foster further discussion.
3. Participation in class discussion (including informal writing). Please take
advantage of the opportunity such discussions (at times in small groups) may
provide to discuss your reactions, share your insights and research, and to
listen and reply to others' ideas. I may call from time to time upon groups
or individuals to facilitate class discussion. I hope such work will enable
you to move the class in directions you find most helpful and give you opportunities
to develop critical skills through collaboration while I continue to share my
perspectives with you. Because our class is seminar size, we’ll have good
opportunities for conversations in which everyone participates.
4. Two double-spaced essays (Essay 1, 6 pp. Thesis-seeking/Problem-Solving Exploratory
Essay; Essay 2, 8 pp undergraduates, 12 pp. graduate students, Critical Interpretative
or Theoretical Argument). More on this later, but in general each of these essays
enable you to explore an interpretive/contextual problem, try out a critical
approach/hypothesis, and to express ideas prompted by your reading, by recent
scholarship, and by our discussion. I am interested in seeing the ways that
you select, define, and engage questions and contradictions, and I attend to
the clarity, imagination, and grace that you demonstrate in presenting your
topic, thesis, and argument. I do not always expect essays to conclude by "solving"
such problems or by "proving" your thesis; I do hope that you address
interesting topics in thoughtful and useful ways. Your first essay assignment
is designed to enable you explore materials as you seek to define problems and
consider making claims and constructing arguments about particular theoretical
or interpretative issues. The second essay is larger in scope and development,
and requires more tightly focused and supported arguments. I am also open to
discussing alternatives that might supplement this assignment with inventive
incorporation of created, fictive primary and secondary texts that represent
particular problems and positions. I expect you to confer with me during the
writing process.
5. Due dates: All required work is due at the beginning of class on the due
date--work turned in later will be marked late and graded accordingly. All required
graded written work will be downgraded one notch (for example, B+ to B, converted
to points for each assignment) for each weekday late (not just days classes
meet but counting just one day for a weekend). Late thesis sentence statements
will not be accepted. Work more than a week late will not be accepted. I will
grant short extensions for documented medical and family emergencies--but talk
with me as soon as possible to request an extension. KEEP EXTRA COPIES OF YOUR
WORK.
6. Attendance is required--your participation is a crucial part of a collective
learning experience. Excellent attendance and participation is rewarded; poor
attendance is penalized. If you have no absences by the term's end (excused
or not), you will receive four bonus points; with one absence, you will receive
two bonus points. But four absences will lower your semester total by 12
points with a ten point reductions for an additional absence (for example,
five absences=minus 22 points); more than five absences will cause you to fail
the class, regardless of your semester point total. Almost all absences will
be counted--excused or not--if something extraordinary occurs, talk to me.
7. Grades: Fifteen thesis statements (standard one point each, but evaluated
ranging from .5 point for underdeveloped or relatively weak thesis, one point
for solid thesis, to 1.5 points for an exceptional statement); Five Critical
Response-type assignments weighted respectively in this order (20, 20, 25, 25,
30 points); Essay 1 (100 points); Essay 2 (130 points). These required assignments
add up to a maximum of 365 points. Thus 329-365 points equals an A, 292-328
equals a B, 256-291 equals a C, 219-255 equals a D, and anything below 219 merits
an F. I shall also reserve a potential five bonus points based on my perceptions
of the strength of your participation and efforts over the semester.
8. Office hours. I encourage you to confer with me--especially before assignments
are due--to talk about your interests, intentions, and writing strategies. I
also expect you to meet with me after midsemester to review your progress. My
office is not accessible to the handicapped, so please let me know if you need
to meet me elsewhere. If you cannot make my regular hours, we’ll arrange
another time. I also welcome communicating with you by E-mail (sflores@uidaho.edu),
and I expect that you will also have an e-mail address so that I can communicate
with you and with the class in this fashion from time to time.
English 495/511 Spring 2002 Syllabus
Note that many of the readings from the Literary Theory anthology are shorter extracts from the full length works cited below. As the semester proceeds, I shall also be adding my own succinct commentaries on topics and readings listed below, available as highlighted links, with further links to other web resources, as evident below.
1/15 What will we be up to?
1/17 Rivkin and Ryan, “Introduction: Formalisms” (Literary Theory,
1.1); James, The Turn of the Screw (Chs. 1-3, pp.21-39)
1/22 Thesis Sentence 1 due;
Culler, “The Linguistic Foundation” (LT 2.1); The Turn of the Screw
(Chs. 4-10, pp. 40-70)
1/24 Saussure,
Course in General Linguistics (LT 2.2); The Turn
of the Screw (Chs. 11-14, pp.70-83); Jakobson, “Two Aspects of Language”
(LT 2.3)
1/29 Thesis Sentence 2 due;The
Turn of the Screw (Chs. 15-24, pp. 83-116); Beidler, “A Critical History
of The Turn of the Screw” (127-51)
1/31 Critical Response
1 due: What is The Turn of the Screw about? (450 words);
Booth, “‘He began to read to our hushed little circle’: Are We
Blessed or Cursed by Our Life with The Turn of the Screw?” (163-78)
2/5 Thesis Sentence 3
due; Montrose, “Professing the Renaissance: The Poetics and Politics
of Culture” (LT 8.1); Sinfield, “Cultural Materialism, Othello, and
the Politics of Plausibility” (LT 8.3); recommended (handouts): Montrose,
“New Historicisms”;
Murfin, “What Is the New Historicism?”
2/7 Murfin, “What
Is Deconstruction?” (179-92)
2/12 Thesis Sentence 4 due;
Murfin, “What Is
Psychoanalytic Criticism?” (207-23); Sarup, “Lacan and
psychoanalysis” (Poststructuralism Ch. 1)
2/14 Critical Response 2 due: Informal Letter of Recommendation/Evaluation
of an Essay/Critical Approach or Traditional Thesis-Support Response—either
one in response to Psychoanalytic Theory or New Historicism (450-500 words);
Felman, “‘The grasp with which I recovered him’: A Child Is Killed
in The Turn of the Screw” (193-206); recommended: Renner, “‘Red
hair, very red, close-curling’: Sexual Hysteria, Physiognomical Bogeymen,
and the ‘Ghosts’ in The Turn of the Screw” (223-41); also
Felman, “Henry James: Madness and the Risks of Practice” in Felman’s
Writing and Madness: Literature/Philosophy/Psychoanalysis (Cornell UP, 1985),
141-247.
2/19 Thesis Sentence 5 due;
Rivkin and Ryan, “Strangers to Ourselves: Psychoanalysis” (LT 3.1);
Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (LT 3.2)
2/21 Freud, “On Narcissism” and “The Uncanny” (LT 3.3-3.4)
2/26 Thesis Sentence 6 due;
Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Group Psychology and the
Analysis of the Ego (LT 3.5-3.6); Lacan, “The Mirror Stage as Formative
of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience” and
“The Symbolic Order” (LT 3.7-3.8)
2/28 Murfin, “What Is Feminist
Criticism?” (242-53); Walton, “‘What then on earth
was I?: Feminine Subjectivity and The Turn of the Screw” (253-67)
3/5 Critical Response 3 due: 200 word abstract plus 350-400
words on primary strengths and limitations of a selected critical/theoretical
text or essay; Lacan, “The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious or
Reason since Freud” (LT 3.9); Girard, “Triangular Desire” (LT
3.13); recommended: Moon, “A Small Boy and Others: Sexual Disorientation
in Henry James, Kenneth Anger, and David Lynch” (LT 7.9)
3/7 Thesis Sentence 7 due;
Sarup, “Derrida and Deconstruction” (Ch. 2)
3/12 Thesis Sentence 8 due;
Rivkin and Ryan, “The Class of 1968—Post-Structuralism par lui-même”
(LT 5.1); Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lying in an Extra-Moral Sense”
and The Will to Power (LT 5.2-5.3); recommended (handout): Tompkins,
“A Short Course in Post-Structuralism”
3/14 Essay 1 due: Thesis-seeking/Problem-Solving Exploratory
Essay; Derrida, “Différance” (LT 5.8)
3/26 Thesis Sentence 9 due;
Derrida, “Plato’s Pharmacy” (LT 5.11); recommended (handout):
Derrida, “Structure,
Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences”
3/28 Murfin, “What Is Marxist
Criticism?” (268-83); Robbins, “‘They don’t much
count, do they?’: The Unfinished History of The Turn of the Screw”
(283-96)
4/2 Thesis Sentence 10 due;
Rivkin and Ryan, “Starting with Zero: Basic Marxism” (LT 4.1); Hegel,
“Dialectics” (LT 4.2); Marx, excerpts from Grundrisse, The
German Ideology, The Manifesto of the Communist Party, “Wage
Labor and Capital,” Capital (LT 4.3-4.7
4/4 Thesis Sentence 11
due; Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”
(LT 294)
4/9 Critical Response 4 due: comparison or hypothetical debate
on different theoretical claims/positions or on issues in analysis/interpretation
of The Turn of the Screw (650 words); Fiske, “Culture, Ideology,
Interpellation” (LT 4.13)
4/11 Z iz ek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (LT 4.14)
4/16 Thesis Sentence 12
due; Sarup, “Foucault and the Social Sciences” (Ch. 3)
4/18 Critical Response 5 due: Prospectus for Essay 2 (750 words);
Foucault,
Discipline and Punish (LT 5.13); optional: Foucault, The Order of
Things and The Archeology of Knowledge (LT 5.7, 5.10)
4/23 Rivkin and Ryan, “Feminist Paradigms” (LT 6.1); Rubin, “The
Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex” (LT
6.2)
4/25 Thesis Sentence 13 due; Sarup, “Cixous, Irigaray,
Kristeva: French Feminist Theories” (Ch. 5)
4/30 Critical Response due; Rivkin and Ryan, “Contingencies
of Gender” (LT 7.1)
5/2 Thesis Sentence 14 due; Sedgwick, Between Men (LT
7.5)
5/7 Thesis Sentence 15 due; Sarup, “Conclusion” (178-87);
Butler, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” (LT 7.7)
5/9 Edelman, “Homographesis” (LT 7.8); Essay 2 due on Monday
13 May by noon
5/15 1:00-3:00 p.m. final class meeting to review semester informally
More resources on critical/literary theory:
Mary Klages on Humanism and Literary Theory
Mary Klages on Claude Lévi-Strauss
Mary Klages on Poststructuralism/Derrida
Mary Klages on Homi Bhaba/Race and Postcolonialism
Mary Klages on Postmodernism (via Sarup)