ENGL
3354: Fundamentals of Literary Criticism
Fall 2006 #92558
MWF 11:15am-12:05pm, Pamplin 3010
Professor Bernice Hausman
Course Texts (ordered at University Bookstore):
Literature,
Criticism, and Theory, by Andrew Bennet and Nicholas Royle
Subculture: The Meaning of Style, by Dick Hebdige
Twilight Zones, by Susan Bordo
Mythologies, by Roland Barthes
Contexts for Criticism, by Donald Keesey
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. The first two thirds of the semester will acquaint students with basic and more developed theories of literary analysis, with the final third of the course focusing on the study of culture and the specifics of 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 your grade to diminish 1 point. If there are ongoing issues that will affect your ability to attend this class, please see Professor Hausman early in the semester.
Midterm exam: 20 points
Final exam: 30 points
Paper 1: 20 points
Paper 2: 30 points
August 21: Introduction to the course.
23: "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Contexts for Criticism)
25: "Ode on a Grecian Urn," by John Keats (Contexts for Criticism)
28: "Benito Cereno," by Herman Melville (Contexts for Criticism)
30: "The beginning" and "The author" (Bennet and Royle); "General Introduction" (Keesey)
Sept. 1: "Historical Criticism I: Author as Context" (Keesey); "Objective Interpretation," by E.D. Hirsh (Keesey)
4: "Are Poems Historical Acts?" by George Watson (Keesey); "Herman Melville and the American national Sin: The Meaning of Benito Cereno," by Sidney Kaplan (Keesey)
6: "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Denise Knight (Keesey)
8: "Formal Criticism: Poem as Context" (Keesey); "Irony as a Principle of Structure," by Cleanth Brooks (Keesey)
11: "Narrative" (Bennet and Royle)
13, 15: "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)
18: Paper #1 due.
20: "Reader-Response Criticism: Audience as Context" (Keesey); "Readers and the Concept of the Implied Reader," by Wolfgang Iser (Keesey); "Readers and reading" (Bennet and Royle)
22: "The Miller's Wife and the Professors: Questions about the Transactive Theory of Reading," by Norman Holland (Keesey)
25: "Narrative Collusion and Occlusion in Melville's 'Benito Cereno,'" by Caterine O'Connell (Keesey)
27: "A Map for Rereading: Or, Gender and the Interpretation of Literary Texts," by Annette Kolodny (Keesey)
29: "Mimetic Criticism: Reality as Context" (Keesey); "The text and the world" and "Sexual difference" (Bennet and Royle)
October 2 : NO CLASS, YOM KIPPUR
4: "The Uses of Psychology," by Bernard Paris (Keesey); "Beyond the Net: Feminist Criticism and Moral Criticism," by Josephine Donovan (Keesey)
6: "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar (Keesey); and "Character," "Voice," and "Figures and tropes" (Bennet and Royle)
9: Fall Break, no class.
11: Pick up take-home midterm.
13: Take-home midterm.
16: Hand in midterm.
18: "Intertextual Criticism: Literature as Context" (Keesey); "The Critical Path," by Northrup Frye (Keesey); "Structuralism and Literature," by Jonathan Culler (Keesey)
20: "Poststructural Criticism: Language as Context" (Keesey); "The postmodern" (Bennet and Royle)
23: "Resisting the Aesthetic," Barbara Jones Guetti (Keesey); "Reader, Text, and Ambiguous Referentiality in 'The Yellow Wall-paper,'" by Richard Feldstein (Keesey)
25: "Whodunit," Swann (in Keesey)
27: "Convention Coverage," Kennard (Keesey)
30: Revision of Paper #1 due: lecture on ideology.
Nov. 1: "Historical Criticism II: Culture as Context" (Keesey); "Literature and History," by Terry Eagleton (Keesey)
3: "Literature, History, Politics," by Catherine Belsey (Keesey); "Culture," by Stephen Greenblatt (Keesey)
6: "Bodily Harm: Keats's Figures in the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn,'" by Marjorie Garson (Keesey); also Thomas essay (in Keesey)
8: "'But One Expects That': Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper' and the Shifting Light of Scholarship," by Julia Bates Dock (Keesey)
10: "Feminist Criticism, "The Yellow Wallpaper," and the Politics of Color in America," Susan Lanser (handout)
13: Mythologies by Roland Barthes (selections TBA)
15: Mythologies continued. "Myth Today" section.
17: Mythologies continued.
NOV. 18-26: THANKSGIVING BREAK
27: Twilight Zones by Susan Bordo. "Introduction," "Braveheart, Babe, and the Contemporary Body."
29: Twilight Zones continued. "P.C., O. J., and Truth."
Dec. 1: Paper #2 due. Lecture on Subcultures.
4: Twilight Zones continued. "Never Just Pictures" and "Can a Woman Harass a Man."
6: Last day of class. Wrap-up discussion. Self-evaluation due.
7: Reading day review for exam, time and place TBA.
11: Final Exam, 3:25-5:25pm.