ENGLISH 4030:
CONTEMPORARY LITERARY CRITICISM
FALL 2005 [Sec. 001, #43104] F. GRADY
MW
201 LUCAS 516-5592
OFFICE HOURS: M
W
A survey of the approaches to literary study that have flourished in the academy over the last century, including New Criticism, structuralism, semiotics, reception theory, marxism, feminism, deconstruction, psychoanalysis (or as the Bulletin description puts it, "psycho-sexual" criticism), gender criticism, new historicism, and other poststructuralist modes of address. Attention will also be paid to contemporary institutional and professional issues. Though much of the reading will be theoretical in nature, we will do our best to remain grounded via Bram Stoker's Dracula, a novel that turns out to be particularly open to--or susceptible to--a variety of critical tactics.
Requirements: Class participation (based on perfect attendance; regular, vigorous, and open-minded contribution to discussion; quiz grades [if necessary]; written responses to weekly discussion questions--20%); two short (5-6pp.) essays (20% each); midterm and final exams (20% each).
Useful information, assignments, links, and a constantly-updated version of this syllabus can be found on mygateway.umsl.edu and on the course homepage, which can be reached from my home page (http://www.umsl.edu/~gradyf).
REQUIRED TEXTS:
M.H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms. Seventh edition. Harcourt Brace Jovanich College Publishers, 1993.
Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction. Second edition. University of Minnesota Press,1996.
David Lodge, Small World. Penguin, 1995 (1984).
Bram Stoker, Dracula. Ed. Nina Auerbach and David J. Skal. Norton Critical Edition. Norton, 1997.
Vincent B. Leitch, ed., The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Norton, 2001 [hence NA].
There will also be a course reader on reserve in the library.
RECOMMENDED: Possession of or regular access to a style manual, either the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers or The Chicago Manual of Style, and a good dictionary.
TENTATIVE SYLLABUS:
M AUG 22 Introduction: A Diversity of Opinion
W AUG 24 The State of the Profession I
Graff, “Taking Cover in Coverage,” NA 2056-67
Graff, "Disliking Books at an Early Age," xerox
M AUG 29 State of the Profession II
Culler, Literary Theory 1-17, xerox
Eagleton, Literary Theory 1-37
Dracula quiz—chapters 1-8
M SEP 5 LABOR DAY
W SEP 7 Canons and Traditions
Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent," NA 1088-98
Eagleton, Literary Theory 37-46
Guillory, "Canon," xerox 233-49
Dracula quiz—chapters 9-17
M SEP 12 Hey, who let this novel in here?
Stoker, Dracula
Dracula quiz—chapters 18-27
W SEP 14 Psychoanalytic Criticism I: Freud and Co.
Eagleton, Literary Theory 131-68
Freud, from The Interpretation of Dreams, NA 913-29
Meltzer, "Unconscious" [reader]
Bentley, “The Monster in the Bedroom: Sexual Symbolism in …Dracula” [reader]
Woolf, from A Room of One's Own, NA 1017-1029
Simone de Beauvoir, from The Second Sex, NA 1403-14
Wittig, “One Is Not Born a Woman,” NA 2012-2021
M SEP 26 Some Feminisms, cont.
Gilbert and Gubar, from The Madwoman in the Attic, NA 2021-35
Schweickart, “Reading Ourselves: Toward a Feminist Theory of Reading” [reader]
Kolodny, "Dancing Through the Minefield…," NA 2143-2165
Sedgwick, from Between Men, NA 2432-38
Jehlen, "Gender" [reader]
Craft, "'Kiss Me with Those Red Lips': Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker's Dracula," in Dracula 444-59
Supplements to Craft: part 1 part 2 part 3
F SEP 30
***FIRST ESSAY DUE DATE***
M OCT 3 Marxist Criticism I: Class
Williams, from Marxism and Literature, NA 1565-75
Moretti, "A Capital Dracula," in Dracula 431-44
Grady, "Vampire Culture" [reader]
W OCT 5 Marxist Criticism II: Ideology and the Subject
Kavanagh, "Ideology" [reader]
Althusser, from Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, NA 1476-79, 1498-1509
M OCT 10 Formalism I: The "New Criticism"
Brooks, "The Language of Paradox" [reader] and "The Heresy of Paraphrase," NA 1350-65
Wimsatt and Beardsley, "The Intentional Fallacy," NA 1371-87
W OCT 12 MIDTERM
M OCT 17 Against Formalism I: Reader-Response Criticism
Eagleton, Literary Theory 47-78
Fish, "Interpreting the Variorum," NA 2067-89
W OCT 19 Against Formalism II: Structuralism
Eagleton, Literary Theory 79-109
Saussure, from Course in General Linguistics, NA 956-66
Frye, “The Archetypes of Literature,” NA 1442-57
M OCT 24 Against Formalism III: Semiotics
Barthes, "The World of Wrestling," xerox, and NA 1457-64
W OCT 26 Against Formalism IV: Deconstruction
Eagleton, Literary Theory 110-30
Graff, "Determinacy/Indeterminacy," xerox
DeMan, “Semiology and Rhetoric,” NA 1509-26
M OCT 31 Deconstruction in Action
Belsey, “Constructing the Subject: Deconstructing the Text” [reader]
Riquelme, "Doubling and Repetition/Realism and Closure in Dracula" [reader]
W NOV 2 Psychoanalysis after Deconstruction: Lacan
Žižek, "
Foster, "The little children can be bitten": A Hunger for Dracula" [reader]
M NOV 7 Marxism After Deconstruction, or Some Historicisms
[Eagleton, Literary Theory 169-89]
Greenblatt, from The Power of Forms, NA 2250-54
Foucault, from Discipline and Punish, NA 1615-21, 1636-47
Schaffer, "'A Wilde Desire Took Me': The Homoerotic History of Dracula," Dracula 470-82
supplements
to Schaffer essay: part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5
W NOV 9 Feminism after Deconstruction
Butler, from Gender Trouble, NA 2485-2501
F NOV 11 ***SECOND ESSAY DUE DATE***
M NOV 14 Postcolonialism
Said, from Orientalism, NA 1986-2002, 2010-12
Spivak, from A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, NA 2197-2208
W NOV 16 Matters of Race
Appiah, "Race" [reader]
Arata, "The Occidental Tourist: Dracula and the Anxiety of Reverse Colonization," in Dracula 462-70
M NOV 21/W NOV 23
THANKSGIVING BREAK
Clover, "Her Body/Himself" [reader], and either
Radway, " "The Institutional Matrix of Romance" [reader]
or
Garber, from Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety [reader]
W NOV 30 Surveying the Ruins
Eagleton, Literary Theory 169-208
Menand, "The Demise of Disciplinary Authority" [reader]
Brantlinger, “Who Killed Shakespeare” [reader]
Scholes, "The Humanities in a Posthumanist World" [reader]
Optional:
Bate, “The Crisis in English Studies” [reader]
DeMan, “The Return to Philology,” NA 1527-31
M DEC 5 Theory as Romance
W DEC 7 Take a Deep Breath Day
***THIRD ESSAY DUE DATE***
M DEC 12 Final Exam
Students with disabilities who believe that they may
need accommodations in this class are encouraged to contact the Disability
Access Services Office in 144 Millennium Student Center at 516-6554 as
soon as possible to ensure that such accommodations are arranged in a timely
fashion.
