ENGL
3354: Literary and Cultural Criticism
Fall 2007
#92566
MWF 10:10am-11:00pm, Pamplin 2028
Professor Bernice Hausman
Course
Texts (ordered at University Bookstore):
Twilight Zones, by Susan Bordo
Mythologies, by Roland Barthes
Contexts for Criticism, by Donald Keesey
Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, by John Storey
We will also be discussing the films Braveheart and Babe at the end of the term; please see these during the term. We may arrange evening viewings for the class.
Course description:
This course introduces students to basic critical practices in literary and cultural theory. With “the world as our text,” we will examine core concepts and methods in literary theory and cultural studies, focusing on the analysis of various kinds of discourses. Students will be exposed to canonical approaches in literary study as well as interdisciplinary methods developed in cultural studies, semiotics, and philosophy.
The focus of this course is reading, with written papers and exams as methods of assessing learning. There will be a different reading for each day of the course, with discussion moving from that reading and lectures provided by the professor. About the first half of the semester will acquaint students with basic and more developed theories of literary analysis, with the last half of the course will focus more specifically on the study of culture and cultural criticism.
How to navigate this website:
Below on this page you will find the assignments and reading schedule for this course, as well as information about attendance . Under assignments, you will see how much each assignment is worth as a percentage of your final grade. The reading schedule includes the topics for discussioin, exam dates, and due dates for papers and presentations, as well as information about what to read when.
Under General Course Info (another web page) you will find links to Prof. Hausman's teaching pages, including information about how to read for her classes, expectations for written work, feminist pedagogy, undergraduate academic policies (see esp. pages on plagiarism) and the honor code, etc. It is your responsibility as a student in Prof. Hausman's class to be familiar with these guidelines and expectations.
Statement on student accommodation:
Students who have a disability or other condition that requires accommodation should discuss the issue with Prof. Hausman early in the semester. Students need not disclose their condition with the professor, merely provide her with documentation from the Dean of Students Office concerning the necessary accommodation. Students may make an appointment or come to Prof. Hausman's office hours (posted on contact info page). All conversations between individual students and the professor will remain confidential.
No absences are excused, but students have three allocated cuts that are "free"--use them wisely! More than three absences will affect your grade; each absence over three (one full week of class) will cause a diminishment of your grade. If there are ongoing issues that will affect your ability to attend this class, please see Professor Hausman early in the semester.
Midterm exam (15 pts.)
Paper 1: Reflection on past experiences with literary criticism and argument about elements of criticism necessary for plausible interpretation. (10 pts.)
Paper 2: Annotated bibliography assignment. (25 pts.)
Paper 3: Literary or cultural analysis, includes presentation of paper content (not reading of paper) at final exam period. (35 pts., including draft and presentation)
Discussion Board entries: weekly entries discussing the readings for the week, on Blackboard site for the course. Students must post by 5pm Friday of each week. If students don't post thoughtful comments that indicate careful reading, I will institute weekly quizzes of reading content. (15 points)
PLEASE NOTE: Many of our readings, especially toward the end of the course, will refer to other, primary articles that will not be assigned to the whole class. If you are interested in any of these other articles, please let me know and I can help you find them or provide you with a copy.
August 20: Introduction to the course.
22: "Ode on a Grecian Urn," by John Keats (Contexts for Criticism)
24: "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Contexts for Criticism)
27: "Benito Cereno," by Herman Melville (Contexts for Criticism)
29: "General Introduction" (Keesey); "Historical Criticism I: Author as Context" (Keesey)
31: "Objective Interpretation," by E.D. Hirsh (Keesey)
Sept. 3: "Are Poems Historical Acts?" by George Watson (Keesey); "Herman Melville and the American National Sin: The Meaning of Benito Cereno," by Sidney Kaplan (Keesey)
5: "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Denise Knight (Keesey)
7: Library class, 207 Newman Library: using JSTOR and the MLA bibliography. Paper #1 due to Professor Hausman's mailbox (#43 on third floor of Shanks Hall).
10: "Formal Criticism: Poem as Context" (Keesey); "Irony as a Principle of Structure," by Cleanth Brooks (Keesey)
12: "On the Third Stanza of Keats's 'Ode on a Grecian Urn," by David A. Kent (Keesey); "The Method of Melville's Short Fiction: 'Benito Cereno,'" by R. Bruce Bidley, Jr. (Keesey)
14: "Reader-Response Criticism: Audience as Context" (Keesey); "Readers and the Concept of the Implied Reader," by Wolfgang Iser (Keesey)
17: "The Miller's Wife and the Professors: Questions about the Transactive Theory of Reading," by Norman Holland (Keesey) and "Narrative Collusion and Occlusion in Melville's 'Benito Cereno,'" by Catherine O'Connell (Keesey)
19: "A Map for Rereading: Or, Gender and the Interpretation of Literary Texts," by Annette Kolodny (Keesey)
21: "Mimetic Criticism: Reality as Context" (Keesey) and "The Uses of Psychology," by Bernard Paris (Keesey)
24: Library class, 207 Newman Library: finding literary criticism in the periodicals section, MLA citation of articles (including places online with style guides).
26: "Beyond the Net: Feminist Criticism and Moral Criticism," by Josephine Donovan (Keesey) and "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar (Keesey)
28: "Intertextual Criticism: Literature as Context" (Keesey); "Structuralism and Literature," by Jonathan Culler (Keesey)
Oct. 1 : "Whodunnit? Or, Who Did What? 'Benito Cereno' and the Politics of Narrative Structure," by Charles Swann (Keesey)
3: Midterm exam review.
5: Midterm exam (proctored).
8: Fall break, no class.
10: "Poststructural Criticism: Language as Context" (Keesey); "Resisting the Aesthetic," Barbara Jones Guetti (Keesey)
12:"Reader, Text, and Ambiguous Referentiality in 'The Yellow Wall-paper,'" by Richard Feldstein (Keesey). Draft of Paper #2 due, in class.
15: "Historical Criticism II: Culture as Context" (Keesey); "Literature and History," by Terry Eagleton (Keesey)
17: "Literature, History, Politics," by Catherine Belsey (Keesey); "Culture," by Stephen Greenblatt (Keesey)
19: "'But One Expects That': Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper' and the Shifting Light of Scholarship," by Julia Bates Dock (Keesey). Revision of section 2 of midterm exam due.
22: No Class. Work on annotated bibliography (paper #2).
24: "Feminist Criticism, "The Yellow Wallpaper," and the Politics of Color in America," Susan Lanser (Look up on JSTOR).
26: "The Yellow Wallpaper" movies. Paper #2 due in class.
29: Chapters 1 and 2 of Cultural Theory and Popular Culture (Storey)
31: Chapter 3 of Cultural Theory and Popular Culture (Storey)
Nov. 2: Chapter 4 of Cultural Theory and Popular Culture (Storey); proposal for paper #3 due in class.
5: Chapter 5 of Cultural Theory and Popular Culture (Storey)
7: Discussion of first five chapters of Cultural Theory and Popular Culture (Storey)
9: Continued discussion of Cultural Theory and Popular Culture (Storey)
12: Chapters 6 and 7 of Cultural Theory and Popular Culture (Storey)
14: Chapter 8 of Cultural Theory and Popular Culture (Storey)
16: Draft of paper #3 due in class. In class--"The Yellow Wallpaper" (1970s version) and "Race: The Floating Signifier" (Stuart Hall, movie)
Thanksgiving Break
26: "Race, The Floating Signifier" cont'd.
28: Mythologies, by Roland Barthes: "The World of Wrestling," "The Brain of Einstein," "Operation Margarine," "Plastic," "Novels and Children." Please also read the second half of the book, "Myth Today." This is the theory section. We will discuss this at length in class.
30: Twilight Zones by Susan Bordo. "Introduction," "Braveheart, Babe, and the Contemporary Body."
Dec. 3: Twilight Zones continued: "P.C., O. J., and Truth" and "Never Just Pictures."
5: Last day of class. Workshopping of papers and discussion of presentations. Self-evaluation due.
11: Final Exam time period, 3:25-5:25pm. Paper #3 due; presentation of paper during final exam period.