Introduction to Literary Studies English 150W (AM3WA) M/W 10:50 – 12:05 pm RA 102 Instructor: Sari Altschuler Office Hours: Mon. 1:30 – 2:30 Email: [email protected] Office: Klapper 341 This class introduces you to literary study: how students and scholars of literature read, what kinds of critical lenses we use, and how/why those lenses are useful. In the first section of the course, we will examine the reading encounter – the relationship between the reader and the text. The second section will introduce you to some basic theoretical models including: psychoanalytic, feminist, gender, Marxist, cultural, poststructural, race, and postcolonial criticism. The third section, we will tackle some of these approaches more specifically, using them primary theoretical texts to open up the literature we read. Finally, we will take a step back and consider the major questions we have been asking and the stakes of those questions. In your final paper, you will be asked to consider the benefits and drawbacks of the theoretical tools we have explored. A Note on Approach: While perusing the various tools and modes of the discipline, we will try to always be mindful of the process of interpretation. It will be important to keep in mind how we come to our interpretations, what grounds them, and what might be at stake in our critical commitments. Clearly we will not be able to do a thorough job with any one form, lens, or text, but by the end of the course you should feel grounded in basic tools that will facilitate your future study. To that end, I encourage you not to wed yourself too quickly to any one critical approach. Tempting as that may be, there is a value in grappling and struggling with new analytical tools. Ultimately, the difficulties these struggles pose will only enrich your scholarship. Do not fear failure. Sometime the most interesting and instructive moments result from spectacular flops. And, to quote Mimonedes, “if not now, when?” Texts you will need to purchase: Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction by Jonathan Culler [ISBN: 978 019 2853 837] Frankenstein by Mary Shelley [You will need to purchase the Bedford edition because we will explore the additional critical materials it provides. ISBN: 978 0312 1912 69] Othello by William Shakespeare [ISBN: 978 074 3477 550] The Awakening by Kate Chopin [ISBN: 978 159 308 0013] Texts you will get from blackboard, the internet or class photocopies: Excerpt from Is there a text in this class? by Stanley Fish “Introduction: What is Literature?” from Literary Theory: An Introduction by Terry Eagleton “The Purloined Letter” by Edgar Allan Poehttp://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/POE/purloine.html “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/POE/fall.html “The Mirror Stage” by Jaques Lacan http://www-class.unl.edu/ahis498b/parts/week5/mirror.html “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner http://www.ariyam.com/docs/lit/wf_rose.html “Can the Subaltern Speak?” by Gayatri Spivak “Cultural Materialism, Othello, and the Politics of Plausability” by Alan Sinfield “Of Our Spiritual Strivings” from The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois http://www.bartleby.com/114/1.html “The Blackness of Blackness: A Critique on the Sign and the Signifying Monkey” by Henry Louis Gates [Available on JSTOR from library website – search in library at www.jstor.org if you have trouble] “The Sheriff’s Children” by Charles Chesnutt http://www.chesnuttarchive.org/Works/Stories/sheriff.html “Dave’s Neckliss” by Charles Chesnutt http://www.chesnuttarchive.org/Works/Stories/neckliss.html “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/GilYell.html “Right of Death and Power over Life” by Michel Foucault from The History of Sexuality, Volume I “Dear John Wayne” by Sherman Alexie General Expectations 1) Regular attendance and in-class participation 2) Online participation (critical responses) 3) Arriving at class prepared: having read the assigned texts for the day and read your classmates’ selected critical responses for that week. Grading In-class participation (20%): I will be assessing you on your in-class engagement, respectful engagement with texts, peers and me, active participation, and in-class assignments (free-writes, quizzes, etc). I consider in-class participation a key element of your learning. In-class assignments cannot be made up at a later time. As such, I expect that you will attend class regularly. If you have an issue with this, please come speak with me. You are responsible for any work you missed due to absences. Online participation (30%): You will be expected to post a critical response of at least 500 words on our class blog (http://altschuler150.wordpress.com/) once a week for a total of 8 times over the courseof the semester. This means you get some reprieve for those moments in the semester that are especially busy for you. Plan well. I will check for these by 5 pm on Sunday evenings. You will need to sign up for a wordpress account in order to post. Please use your full name: e.g. fscottfitzgerald so that everyone involved in the class can easily recognize you. The aim of these assignments is to give you a space to reflect a bit on the course and process in new and different ways. I highly encourage using the space to try out different critical lenses. For example: try out a queer reading of The Awakening, attempt a psycholanalytic reading of Othello, think about what a new historical reading of Charles Chesnutt might look like. OR, if we’re reading a critical article on a piece (say, in the Frankenstein weeks), offer your own critique of the article we have read. Do you buy the reading offered? Why or why not? Do you have further thoughts about how the approach taken works in the text? Ramifications of the given perspective? Do you think the psychoanalytic reading offered is anti-feminist? What happens to postcolonial issues in the feminist reading? If you want, think about how such readings might work together in interesting ways. Above all, make sure to ground your arguments in the text. I expect no fewer than four direct quotations in your responses. I will not be judging your posts on how “right” or “wrong” they are, but rather whether to what degree you’ve engaged the issues of the course