Course Description:
This course will introduce major theoretical texts, issues, and problematics in English studies, and, more generally, in the Humanities. The diverse range of topics and the density of many of the texts make this an especially rigorous and demanding course. Class time will be spent in lecture, presentations, and discussion.
Note: This course is designed for graduate students who are entering UTA's Master's or Ph.D. program in English. This course assumes that students already have a solid background in literature or rhetoric. If you do not have such a background or if you are not seriously committed to graduate study in English, you should consider dropping this course.
Course Objectives:
1) For students to learn about the major texts, methodologies, and problematics in English Studies. 2) For students to learn how to read texts from a variety of critical perspectives and, in turn, to become more self-conscious about their modes of analysis and interpretation. 3) For students to develop their own perspectives on theoretical issues.
Required Texts:
Roland Barthes, _S/Z_
Samuel Delany, _Neveryona_
David Lodge, _Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader _
Course packet. (P) Available from Joe's Copies, Border & West Street
Evaluation:
Participation, Presentations 15%
7 Short Papers 65%
Final Paper 20%
Course Requirements:
1. Attendance. Missing more than one class may lower your grade. Missing three or more will result in failing the course.
2. Careful reading of the essays, demonstrated by informed and thoughtful class participation. Failure to participate or to rigorously read the essays will result in an "F" for participation.
3. Presentations: Two analytical and comparative presentations about the essays for that week. (You will sign up for these presentations.) One presentation of your final paper on the last day of class.
4. Six four-page weekly papers (you can choose which weeks to skip). Choose one article that we are reading for that week. Summarize the main argument of the article, then apply the article's methodology to your text. Conclude by evaluating the benefits or limitations of that theory for an analysis of your text. All papers must be typed or computer-printed and all must be stapled. Please do not use plastic binders or folders for the papers. The nature of this course requires that all papers must be handed in on time, which means by 6:00 the day it is due.
5. One ten-page final paper that is either a comparison/contrast of two theorists or theories or a position paper.
In order to pass the course you must successfully meet all requirements for papers, presentations, and participation.
Introductions
Week One. August 27.
Discuss your own theories of interpretation. Cary Nelson, "Problematizing Interpretation: Some Opening Questions," and assorted poems (handouts).
The Nature of the Word
Week Two. September 7.
Ferdinand de Saussure, "The object of study" and "Nature of the linguistic sign"
Jacques Lacan, "The insistence of the letter in the unconscious"
Mikhail Bahktin, "From the prehistory of novelistic discourse"
Samuel R. Delany, _Neveryona_ Chapter 12, "Of Models, Monsters, Night, . . . "
Structuralism, Poststructuralism, Semiotics: Barthes S/Z
Week Three. September 10.
First read "Sarrasine" 221-254, then read _S/Z_ from start to finish.
Deconstruction
Week Four. September 17.
Jaques Derrida, "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" and "Diffˇrance" (P)
Delany, Chapter 8, "Of Models, Mystery, Moonlight, and Authority"
M. H. Abrams, "The Deconstructive Angel"
J. Hillis Miller, "The Critic as Host"
Authors and Texts
Week Five. September 24.
Roland Barthes, "The Death of the Author"
Michel Foucault, "What is an Author?"
Umberto Eco, "Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage"
Delany, Chapter 1, "Of Dragons, Mountains, Transhumance, Sequence, . . ."
Hermeneutics and Reader-Response
Week Six. October 1.
Wolfgang Iser,"The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach"
E. D. Hirsch Jr. "Faulty Perspectives"
Stanley Fish, "Is There a Text in this Class?" [P]
Jonathan Culler, from _On Deconstruction _[P]
Psychoanalysis
Week Seven. October 8.
Jacques Lacan, "The Mirror Stage" & "The Signification of the Phallus"[P]
Geoffrey Hartman, "The Interpreter's Freud"
Mary Ann Doane, "_Caught_ and _Rebecca_: The Inscription of Femininity as Absence"[P]
Samuel R. Delany, _Neveryona_, 365-367
Marxism
Week Eight. October 15.
Marx and Engels, "The German Ideology" [P]
Stuart Hall, "The Problem of Ideology: Marxism without Guarantees" [P]
Walter Montag, "The Workshop of Filthy Creation: A Marxist Reading of Frankenstein" [P]
Samuel R. Delany, _Neveryona_, Ch. 7, "Of Commerce, Capital, Myths. . ."
Foucault and Discourse Analysis
Week Nine. October 22.
Michel Foucault, "The Incitement to Discourse," from _The History of Sexuality_ [P] and various handouts
Catherine Belsey, "Literature, History, Politics"
Delany, Chapter 9, "Of Night, Noon, Time, and Transition"
Feminism
Week Ten. October 29.
Luce Irigaray, "Cosi Fan Tutti" [P]
Ann Snitow, "A Gender Diary" [P]
Hortense Spillers, "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe" [P]
Judith Butler, "Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire," from _Gender Trouble_ [P]
Queer Theory
Week Eleven. November 5.
Eve Sedgwick, "Introduction: Axiomatic" from _Epistemology of the Closet_
Diana Fuss, "Lesbian and Gay Theory: The Question of Identity Politics" [P]
Monique Wittig, "One is Not Born a Woman," from _The Straight Mind_
Race and Postcolonialism
Week Twelve. November 12.
Edward Said, "Crisis"
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., "Writing 'Race' and the Difference it Makes" [P]
Stuart Hall, "New Ethnicities" [P]
Richard Dyer, from _White_ [P]
Cultural Studies
Week Thirteen. November 19.
Cary Nelson et. al., "Cultural Studies: An Introduction" [P]
Donna J. Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto" [P]
Paula A. Treichler, "How to Use a Condom: Bedtime Stories for the Transcendental Signifier" [P]
Week Fourteen. November 26. Thanksgiving.
Conclusions
Week Fifteen. December 4. Present and discuss final papers.
Literature Seminars
Literature HP & Program
The ENGLISH HOME PAGE
Stacy Alaimo's HP.