Course Description
A special topic in literary theory not otherwise offered in the English curriculum.
Athena Title
Topics in Literary Theory
Prerequisite
Two 2000-level ENGL courses or (one 2000-level ENGL course and one 3000-level ENGL course) or (one 2000-level ENGL course and one 2000-level CMLT course)
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
At the end of the course, students will be able to discuss the assigned works (orally and in writing) with a considerable degree of critical sophistication, to reread them with pleasure, to read and enjoy other works, and to converse with fellow students about texts and issues related to the subject matter of the course. As are all upper-division English courses, this course is writing-intensive, which means that students should expect to compose and to revise at least 20 pages of written work, including group and individual writing projects, print or web publications.
Topical Outline
The choice and sequence of topics will vary from instructor to instructor and from semester to semester. Various works will be read outside of class and discussed in class, examined individually and comparatively in the context of the times and the circumstances of their composition. Periodically during the semester, students will perform a number of graded tasks, including some combination of tests and writing assignments. Such written work may include: annotated bibliographies; short "summary-response" papers, in which students carefully summarize weekly readings and thoughtfully respond to them; short or long argumentative essays that engage the readings and perhaps the scholarship on key figures and works. Possible topics could include: Cultural Studies (including works by Stuart Hall, Roland Barthes, Raymond Williams, Stephen Greenblatt, Louis Montrose, James Clifford, Richard Johnson, John Frow, Henry Giroux, Patrick Brantlinger, Tony Bennett, John Bennett, Andrew Ross, Lawrence Grossberg, Doug Kellner, Michael Sprinker, Dick Hebdige, Pierre Bourdieu) Marxist Literary Theory (including works by Karl Marx, Mikhail Bakhtin, Fredric Jameson, Perry Anderson, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Louis Althusser, Terry Eagleton, Jay Martin, Slavoj Žižek, Guy Debord, Fredric Jameson, Gayatri Spivak, Antonio Gramsci, Pierre Macherey) Rhetorical Studies (including works by Kenneth Burke, Wayne Booth) Feminist Literary Theory (including works by Elaine Showalter, Luce Irigaray, Helene Cixous, Judith Butler, Barbara Smith) Poststructuralism (including works by Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault)