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Carleton University Department of English Fall 2009 ENGL 3605A: Modern and Contemporary Literary Theory Precludes additional credit for ENGL 3002 (no longer offered) Prerequisites: 1.0 credit in ENGL at the 1000 level and third-year standing Schedule: Tuesdays and Thursdays 1:05-2:25pm Location: Please confirm on Carleton Central Instructor: Alex Wetmore email:
[email protected] Office: 1919DT Phone: 520-2600 ext. 8949 Office Hours: Tuesdays 11.00-12.00 p.m., or by appointment Course Description: This is an introduction to contemporary approaches to literary texts, such as formalist, structuralist, poststructuralist, deconstructive, psychoanalytic, Marxist, historicist, and feminist. Topics will include: the role of literature and its relationship to history and culture; questions surrounding authorship, subjectivity, knowledge, ideology and language; the canon; high and low art and culture; postmodernism; disciplinary, aesthetic, and epistemological boundaries; questions surrounding gender, sexuality, class, race and national identity. Required Texts: (1) Vincent Leitch, ed. Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Published by WW Norton and Co. (2) Emily Bronte. Wuthering Heights. 2nd Ed. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism Series. Published by Bedford St-Martins. *** Texts available at Octopus Books (corner of Third and Bank street in the Glebe). Recommended Resources (through Carleton Library): (1) Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism: http://litguide.press.jhu.edu.proxy.library.carleton.ca/index.html (2) Oxford Reference Online Premium: http://www.oxfordreference.com.proxy.library.carleton.ca/views/GLOBAL.html On Reserve (location TBA): Critical essays from Wuthering Heights.
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Course Evaluation: Group Presentations: 15% 5x Short Response Papers (1-2pgs): 10% Final Essay (6-8pgs): 40% Final Exam: 30% Participation: 5% Group Presentations (15%): All students will be expected to participate in a group presentation. The specific final structure of this presentation will be discussed in class, but essentially the task will involve working in a small group to prepare and deliver a short (appx. 5-10min) oral presentation on one text or theorist and present detailed critical questions designed to stimulate productive class discussion. 5x Short Response Papers (10%): Students will be expected to present 5 response papers (1-2 pgs in length) in which they engage critically with a reading from the course. The choice of which texts to focus on is up to the students, as is the specific focus of the response. For example, an acceptable paper can be a close reading of a specific passage, an attempt to define a difficult key term or concept, a summary of a text’s argument, it can also articulate a problem or question raised by a reading, or attempt to apply the insights from a work to a literary/cultural product, or even offer a critical response to issues raised in class discussion. The primary expectation is that these response papers demonstrate an attempt at critical analysis of some kind and are not merely used as a vehicle for opinion (I liked/ didn’t like this text or theorist). Final Essay (40%): The structure of the final essay will be discussed in class closer to the due date. Suggested topics will be handed out in class, but there will also be the possibility of pursuing your own topic, pending approval by your instructor (that means me). Lateness policy: late essays will be penalized a grade a day unless accompanied by acceptable official documentation. Final Exam (30%): The structure of the final exam will also be discussed in greater detail in class, but will most likely involve some combination of term definitions, passage identification, short answer, and essay questions. Participation (5%): The participation grade will be based largely on active and thoughtful participation in class discussion. Students are expected to come to class prepared – having read the texts and ready to respond to potential issues and questions raised by myself and by student presentations.
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Course Schedule: Schedule Note I: unless otherwise indicated, readings are from the Norton Anthology. Students should also read the anthology’s introductions to each theorist, as these can sometimes be more helpful than the readings themselves. Note II: Changes to schedule are rare, but can occur and will be announced in class. It is the student’s responsibility to stay on top of any alterations to the course schedule. Week 1 10 September –
Introduction to class
Week 2 15 September –
Norton Introduction
17 September –
Terry Eagleton “Literary Theory: The Rise of English”
Week 3 22 September -
Ferdinand de Saussure “Course in General Linguistics”
24 September -
Sigmund Freud “The Uncanny”
Week 4 29 September -
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels “Communist Manifesto,” “Grundrisse,” “Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy” (First Response Paper Due)
1 October –
Roland Barthes “From Work to Text”
Week 5 6 October –
“What is Deconstruction?” from Wuthering Heights
8 October –
Raymond Williams “Marxism and Literature”
Week 6 13 October – 15 October –
Walter Benjamin “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” Jacques Lacan (focus on intro) “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience”
Week 7 20 October –
Michel Foucault “Repressive Hypothesis”
22 October –
Michel Foucault “What is an Author?,” “Truth and Power”
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Week 8 27 October –
Virginia Woolf “A Room of One’s Own”
29 October –
Laura Mulvey “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”
Week 9 3 November –
Donna Haraway “A Manifesto for Cyborgs”
5 November –
Frederic Jameson “Postmodernism and Consumer Society”
Week 10 10 November –
J-F Lyotard “Defining the Postmodern”
12 November –
Edward Said “Orientalism”
Week 11 17 November –
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “From A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Can the Subaltern Speak?”
19 November –
Dick Hebdige “Subculture: The Meaning of Style”
Week 12 24 November –
Wuthering Heights – Feminist Reading
26 November –
Wuthering Heights – Deconstructive Reading
Week 13 1 December –
Wuthering Heights – Cultural Criticism Reading
3 December (review) Week 14 7 December (open)
Final Essay Due
Special Accommodations: You may need special arrangements to meet your academic obligations during the term. For an accommodation request the processes are as follows: Pregnancy obligation: write to me with any requests for academic accommodation during the first two weeks of class, or as soon as possible after the need for accommodation is known to exist. For more details visit the Equity Services website http://www.carleton.ca/equity/accommodation/student_guide.htm Religious obligation: write to me with any requests for academic accommodation during the first two weeks of class, or as soon as possible after the need for accommodation is known to exist. For more details visit the Equity Services website http://www.carleton.ca/equity/accommodation/student_guide.htm
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Students with disabilities requiring academic accommodation in this course must register with the Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities (PMC) for a formal evaluation of disability-related needs. Documented disabilities could include but are not limited to mobility/physical impairments, specific Learning Disabilities (LD), psychiatric/psychological disabilities, sensory disabilities, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and chronic medical conditions. Registered PMC students are required to contact the PMC, 613-520-6608, every term to ensure that I receive your Letter of Accommodation, no later than two weeks before the first assignment is due or the first in-class test/midterm requiring accommodations. If you only require accommodations for your formally scheduled exam(s) in this course, please submit your request for accommodations to PMC by the last official day to withdraw from classes in each term. For more details visit the PMC website: http://www.carleton.ca/pmc/students/acad_accom.html Plagiarism: The University Senate defines plagiarism as presenting, whether intentionally or not, the ideas, expression of ideas, or the work of others as one’s own. This can include: reproducing or paraphrasing portions of someone else’s published or unpublished material, regardless of the source, and presenting these as one’s own without proper citation or reference to the original source submitting a take-home examination, essay, laboratory report or other assignment written, in whole or in part, by someone else using ideas, quotations, or paraphrased material, concepts or ideas without appropriate acknowledgement in an essay or assignment failing to acknowledge sources through the use of proper citations when using another’s works, and/or failing to use quotation marks handing in substantially the same piece of work for academic credit more than once without prior written permission of the course instructor in which the submission occurs Plagiarism is a form of intellectual theft. It is a serious offence that cannot be resolved directly with the course’s instructor. The Associate Deans of the Faculty conduct a rigorous investigation, including an interview with the student, when an instructor suspects a piece of work has been plagiarized. Penalties are not trivial. They can include failure of the assignment, failure of the entire course, suspension from a program, suspension from the university, or even expulsion from the university. See the Section on Academic Integrity in the Student Conduct Portion of the Undergraduate Calendar.