ENGLISH 4030:
CONTEMPORARY Critical theory
Fall 2005 First Essay Assignment
Please submit a 4-6 page essay on one of the topics
below by FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30. Remember to support the claims you make with
frequent, accurate, and direct reference to any texts you consider, and be sure
to cite correctly any sources you use (
1. Design your own
topic, of suitable specificity and sophistication, about something that
interests you in the material we’ve covered so far. If there’s a discussion question that
particularly intrigued you or you now wish you could have said more about, this
would be a chance to pursue it further.
If you decide to design your own topic, you must discuss it with me and
provide a description in writing (at least a paragraph) by Monday, September 26.
2. Expository: Explain, carefully and
thoroughly, one of the concepts we’ve encountered so far this term. Good candidates would include “canon,”
“literature,” and "unconscious."
3. Also expository: Explain, carefully and thoroughly, the
difference between an "Oedipal" reading of Dracula and a "pre-Oedipal" one, and what the critical
payoff is for each one--that is, what does each approach teach us about the
novel?
4. Autobiographical: Is Gerald Graff’s
account of the structure of English Departments and majors in “Taking Cover in
Coverage” borne out in your own experience?
If so, how could your course of study have been altered to accomplish
what Graff advocates with his “teaching the conflicts” model? Note: be specific rather than hypothetical,
that is, rather than fantasizing about utterly remaking the Department, think
about ways in which courses you have actually taken could have been linked
together or brought into dialogue (or conflict). Names may be changed to protect the innocent.
5 Curricular: Take up again the question
of whether a course in Shakespeare should be required of UM-St. Louis English
majors. Your argument should move beyond
questions of taste--the notion that you or any individual student might like or
dislike Shakespeare enough to seek out or avoid such courses--and try to
address the ways in which such a requirement might or might not fit into your
vision of what it means to be an English major.
Is it largely a matter of acquainting yourself with a tradition in which
Shakespeare looms large, or is it an opportunity to explore the widest possible
variety of literatures in English, or is it a process of acquiring certain
interpretative skills that don't require the study of any particular author? What, you might ask, do other schools require--and
are those schools whose example UMSL should seek to imitate or to avoid?
(use
this link: http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/english/links/engdpts.html#HooverEnglish)