Office Hours -- 9-11 MWF and by appointment
"Almost all the books that I esteem,
and absolutely all that have served me
to some purpose, are books that are
rather difficult to read." (Valery)
A writer's fantasy....
Reading is an embarrassment.
Writing would be perfect,
if only readers didn't screw it up
by doing what they do.
And who knows what they do?
Readers are unpredictable.
Writers would be better off without them.
Without readers, writers would have control.
But of what?
Think about reading. The questions are difficult. What is the experience of reading? Mentally? Physically? What is the area of interpretation? How much of interpretation is dictated by "the text?"
Can texts direct their own reading ("read themselves")? What does this mean? Is reading an individual act, determined by individual experience and chance? Or is it governed by sociological variables, such as gender, class, geography, race, etc.? Or is it an act of reception, as in "getting the story straight?"
How do we account for and evaluate different readings of texts? Why are there professional readers? What are their characteristics? How do they differ from amateur readers? When expert readers disagree, how is this disagreement resolved?
This course will require you to:
read and think
come to class prepared to discuss
or write about the reading
READING ASSIGNMENTS:
The following books have been ordered and should be in the bookstore.
Roland Barthes, S/Z.
Harold Bloom, A Map of Misreading.
Elizabeth Flynn and Patrocinio Schweickart, Gender and Reading.
Elizabeth Freund, The Return of the Reader: Reader-Response Criticism.
Janice Radway, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature.
Louise Rosenblatt, Literature as Exploration.
Jane Tompkins, Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism.
All of the works marked with an asterisk (*) will be found at the Fast Copy Center.
Week:
1 - 21 Jan. 1993: INTRODUCTION Discussion of reading in *Adler, *Pound, *McGann.
2 - 28 Jan. 1993: WHO IS TO BE IN CHARGE? *Jakobson, *Wimsatt & Beardsley, *Richards, Freund 1-2.
3 - 4 Feb. 1993: ACTUAL READERS I Rosenblatt, Literature as Exploration .
4 - 11 Feb. 1993: ACTUAL READERS II *Holland, and Holland (in Tompkins) *Culler, Culler (in Tompkins), Freund 3 & 5.
5 - 18 Feb. 1993: READERS IN THE TEXT Prince (in Tompkins), *Prince, Iser (in Tompkins), *Iser, Freund 6.
6 - 25 Feb. 1993: Guest appearance by Prof. WOOD.
7 - 4 Mar. 1993: READERS AND COMMUNITIES Fish (in Tompkins), *Fish, *Mailloux, Michaels (in Tompkins), Freund 4.
8 - 11 Mar. 1993: WRITERS AS MISREADERS Bloom.
9 - 25 Mar. 1993: Guest appearance by Prof. ROEMER.
10 - 1 Apr. 1993: READING, WRITING, CASTRATION Barthes
11 - 8 Apr. 1993: MORE... *Gallop, *Eco.
12 - 15 Apr. 1993: READERS IN HISTORY *Bauschatz, *Jauss, Tompkins (in Tompkins), Schibanoff (in Flynn and Schweickart), Shevelow (Flynn and Schweickart), *Bennett.
13 - 22 Apr. 1993: READING AND RESISTANCE *Kennedy, Flynn and Schweickart 1,2,3,8,10,11,12.
14 - 29 Apr. 1993: READING AS SOCIAL PRACTICE Radway.
15 - 6 May 1993:
ASSIGNMENTS: For each of the first three weeks, you will write a reading response to a piece of literature given you in class. Each essay will be about 1200 words long, and will consist of your observations of your own reading experiences.
There will be a longer (20 page) essay due at the end of the term, of the sort intended for scholarly publication. This will address a problem in the area of reading scholarship.
YOUR PAPERS: Papers written for this course should be on white 8.5 x 11 paper, pages numbered, one inch margins, type 10 or 12 characters to the inch. Everything (text, notes, quotations) must be double-spaced. Quotations longer than 4 or 5 lines should be indented with no quotation marks. Your name, paper title, course name, and date should be flushleft at the top of the first page. All matters should follow the MLA Style Sheet. Take care that your papers look right. Papers must be carefully proof-read; a very few corrections may be made, neatly, in ink. Accent marks may be added in ink.
[Use a word processor, if at all possible. Machines are available for use in the Writing Center (5th floor, Carlisle Hall), and elsewhere on campus.
Papers must be submitted in an envelope with your name on the outside and an audio cassette (any old kind) inside with the paper. My comments will be returned on the cassette.
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