Syllabus

Prof. Pardis Dabashi

MW 2:40- 4:00pm 

English House I

Office Hours: by appointment (English House 208)

Methods of Literary Study

Course Description: This course offers students a survey of the main trends in the quite long history of literary theory and criticism. As we attend to the philosophical and social perspectives that over the course of several centuries have emerged around the art of literature, students will also learn how theoretical paradigms often emerge as responses to previous ones. Students will grow acquainted with how major theorists and critics have attempted to answer seemingly impossibly big questions. What is literature? How can it be understood? What is its purpose? How do we—and should we—interpret it? 

Required Texts:

Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Norton, 2018.

James Joyce, The Dead 1914. Bedford, 1993.

These editions are available at the BMC Bookshop. I would highly recommend purchasing your books there. It is an independent bookstore that does a superb job at beating online prices. 

If there are supplementary readings, they will be made available on Moodle.

*Readings should be completed by the day they are listed in the syllabus.*

Grading:

Participation: 25%

In-Class Presentation: 25%

Midterm Paper: 20%

Final Paper: 30%

Attendance and Participation: 

Your participation grade will be based upon the following criteria: attendance, verbal contributions to discussions, and level of preparedness with regard to readings. This class will be heavily discussion-based. Attendance and class participation are therefore required. You need to have completed the assigned reading for that class and be prepared to make thoughtful, interactive contributions to class discussion. More than two absences will likely start to impact your grade. It is not necessary to inform me of when and/or why you will be absent.

Electronic Device Policy: 

This is an entirely analog class. I only allow written forms of note-taking; in other words, no laptops, ipads, or cell phones are allowed. This will allow for optimal immersion in the material, material which will need your undivided attention. 

In-Class Presentation:

On the third day of class, I will be passing around a sign-up sheet for class presentations. Your job is to...

1. Sign up for one class session, during which you will give your presentation

2. Note down that date in your own personal calendar.

Take the time to make sure that that date works for you: there will not be an opportunity to change it.

Policy on late assignments:

You are free to submit your midterm paper any day between October 7th and November 7th. However, if you hand in your paper any day after October 19th, I will provide only the grade—no written feedback. This policy respects both your time and mine. There are no exceptions to this policy. Please submit your paper as a hard copy in my mailbox in English House.

You are free to submit your final paper any day between December 10th and December 17th. I will not accept papers beyond the 17th (no exceptions). Please submit your paper in my mailbox in English House. 

Formatting and submission requirements:

Your papers must be in word.doc format, typed, double-spaced, in 12-point font (Times New Roman), and with one-inch margins on all sides. Include your name at the top of the first page in the name of the word.doc. Pages on all assignments must be numbered and stapled.

Note on Communication: I would love to talk to you. Here's how we can communicate. Because I receive such a high volume of emails, I have a strong preference for in-person communication. Therefore, if you have a question that can wait to be answered in the few minutes after class, please approach me then. If you do send me an email, please contact me via email only between the hours of 9am-5pm on Monday-Friday. I will respond to you in a timely manner (for me, that usually means somewhere between 24-48 hours). Thank you very much.

SYLLABUS

Week 1: Getting Our Feet Wet

8/31: Class overview

9/2: Plato’s Republic, Books 2, 3, and 7

Week 2: Ancient Beginnings

9/7: NO CLASS (Labor Day)

9/9: Aristotle, Poetics (p. 99-127)

Week 3: Christian Latinity and Early Jewish Interpretation Theory

9/14: St. Augustine, On Christian Teaching, 166-177; Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed,

180-188

9/16: Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 191-194; Dante Alighieri, Convivio and

Letter to Can Grande, 196-199

Week 4: Early Modernity, the Enlightenment, and the Question of the Aesthetic, Part I

9/21: Baruch Spinoza, Of the Interpretation of Scripture, 314-326; Giambattista Vico, New

Science, 340-357 

9/23: Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Criticism,” 370-383; Samuel Johnson, “On Fiction,” 387-

390; “Preface to Shakespeare,” 392-405

Week 5: Part II; and The Romantics Part I

9/28: David Hume, “Of the Standard of Taste,” 410-424; Immanuel Kant, Critique of

Judgment, 429-263

9/30: Lessing, Laocoön, 476-492; Schiller, “On the Aesthetic Education of Man,” 494-503;

Schleiermacher, 533-544

Week 6: The Romantics Part II; and the Emergence of Modern Criticism

10/5: Hegel, 549-563; Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, 590-597; Shelley, 601-618

10/7: Matthew Arnold, 684-710

FALL BREAK

MIDTERM PAPER DUE any day between 10/7 and 11/7 (See submission details above)

Week 8: The Modern Episteme: Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, Part I

10/19: Sigmund Freud, 789-819

Week 8: The Modern Episteme, continued

10/26: Friedrich Nietzsche, 740-762

10/28: Marx and Engels, 655-680

Week 9: The Linguistic Turn and the Death of the Author

11/2: Ferdinand de Saussure, 824-840; Jacques Derrida, "Structure, Sign, and Play"

11/4:  Barthes, 1268-1272 ; Foucault, 1394-1409 ; Wimsatt and Beardsley, 1198-1211

Week 10: Critical Race and the Canon

11/9: W.E.B Du Bois, 845-853; Zora Neale Hurston, 938-954

11/11: Toni Morrison, 1670-1684; bell hooks, 2318-2325

Week 11: Postcoloniality Part I

11/16: Franz Fanon, 1361-1367

11/18: Edward Said, 1780-1821 

Week 12: Holiday interlude

11/23: Achebe, 1536-1547

THANKSGIVING

Week 13: Postcoloniality Part II 

11/30: Edward Said, "Secular Criticism"

12/2: Gayatri Spivak, 2001-2012

Week 14: Gender and Sexuality

12/7: Simone de Beauvoir, 1214-1221; Judith Butler, 2375-2388

12/9: Susan Stryker, "My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix"

Final Paper Due any day between 12/10 and 12/17