ENG502: Literary Theory
Course Schedule, Spring 08

Week One
T 1.15: Introduction

Week Two: Classical Era to Romanticism
T 1.22: Selden "Introduction," "Introduction to Theory and Criticism"
Journal: Choose two authors from the Norton (ones we are not reading and who were working somewhere between Plato and Marx) and detail their importance to literary theory and criticism, citing specific textual examples in the process.
Secondary Resources: Glossary of Literary Theory
Introductory Guide to Critical Theory
Lye, "The Difference Between Literary Criticism, Literary Theory, and "Theory Itself"

Week Three: New Criticism and Formalism
T 1.29: Selden "New Criticism" and "Russian formalism"
Wimsatt and Beardsley, "The Intentional Fallacy" (1371-1381), "The Affective Fallacy" (1387-1393)
Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (1088-1098)
Cleanth Brooks, "The Well Wrought Urn" (1350-1365)
Journal Due
Secondary Resources: "New Criticism Explained"
Summary/Notes on Wimsatt and Beardsley
"Russian Formalism" (from WordIQ)

Week Four: Marx and Friends
T 2.5: Selden "Marxist Theories"
Marx, All Selections (759-788)
Gramsci, "The Formation of the Intellectuals" (1135-1143)
Wilson, "Marxism and Literature" (1243-1253)
Journal Due
Secondary Resources: Marxist Glossary
"Marxism and Ideology"
Marxists Internet Archive
Gramsci at theory.org

Week Five: Marx Part Deux
T 2.12: Horkheimer and Adorno, from Dialectic of Enlightenment (1220-1239)
Dziga Vertov, Man With A Movie Camera (film)
Vertov, "We: Variant of a Manifesto" (pdf)
Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1163-1185)
Journal Due
Secondary Resources: Information from wbenjamin.org
Adorno at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Week Six: Structuralism
T 2.19: Selden "Structuralist Theories"
Saussure, All Selections (956-976)
Althusser, All Selections (1476-1508)
Journal Due
Secondary Resources: "Structuralism" at the Bedford Glossary
"Elements of Structuralism and its Application to Literary Theory"
Semiotics for Beginners
Althusser Bio
Althusser and the ISA

Week Seven: Structuralism/Barthes
T 2.26: Barthes, All Selections (1457-1476)
Barthes, "Myth Today" (pdf)
Todorov, "Structural Analysis of Literature" (2097-2105)
Journal: Perform a Barthesian reading of a small object you bring into class.
Secondary Resources: Barthes as Structuralist
Barthes Biography

Week Eight
T 3.4: No Class.

Week Nine: Psychoanalysis
T 3.11: Freud, All Selections (913-955)
Lacan, All Selections (1278-1310) (annotated version of "The Mirror Stage")
In-Class Film Screenings
Journal Due
Secondary Resources: Psychoanalysis Glossary
McGowan, "Looking for the Gaze" (pdf)
Psychoanalysis and Sigmund Freud
Introduction to Freud
Lacan and Antonioni
Notes on the Gaze

F 3.14
First Paper Due.

Week Ten: Poststructuralism/Postmodernism
T 3.18: Selden "Poststructuralist theories"
Foucault, "What is an Author" (1615-1636)
Baudrillard, from "The Precession of Simulacra" (1729-1741)
Deleuze and Guattari, all selections (1593-1609)
Journal Due: Find/analyze/discuss a popular articulation of poststructuralist or postmodernist theory.
Secondary Resources: Structuralism/Poststructuralism
Some Post-Structural Assumptions
Deconstruction
Baudrillard and Postmodernism
Baudrillard in The Matrix

Week Eleven: Feminism/Gender Studies/Queer Theory
T 3.25: Selden "Feminism"
Rich "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" (1762-1781)
Gilbert and Gubar, "The Madwoman in the Attic" (2021-2035)
Sedgewick, "Between Men" and "Epistemology of the Closet" (2432-2445)
Journal Due
Secondary Resources: What is Feminism?
Feminist Theory Site
Feminism and Women's Studies Links

Week Twelve: Gender And Then
T 4.1: Selden "Gay, lesbian and queer theories"
Butler, "Gender Trouble" (2485-2502)
Anzaldua, from Borderlands/La Frontera (2208-2223)
Journal Due
Secondary Resources: Queer Theory at theory.org
Queer Theory Overview
Judith Butler and Gender Trouble
Judith Butler Overview

Week Thirteen: Cultural Studies/New Historicism
T 4.8: During "Introduction" to The Cultural Studies Reader (pdf)
Greenblatt, "Introduction" to The Power of Forms in the English Renaissance (2250-2254)
Hebdige, from Subculture: The Meaning of Style (2445-2457)
Haraway, "A Manifesto for Cyborgs" (2266-2298)
Journal Due
Secondary Resources: Reading Notes for "A Cyborg Manifesto"

Week Fourteen: Postcolonialism and Race
T 4.15: Selden, "Postcolonialist Theories" (218)
Said, from Orientalism (1991-2012)
Spivak, from A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (2197)
Hughes, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (1313)
Hurston, "Characteristics of Negro Expression" and "What White Publishers Won't Print" (1144)
Journal Due
Secondary Resources: Introduction to Postcolonial Studies
Edward Said and Postcolonial Theory
Spivak Glossary
African American Literary Criticism
Postcolonial and Postimperial Literature in English

Week Fifteen: Conclusion: Theory after Theory
T 4.22: Selden "Conclusion: Post Theory"

Week Sixteen
T 4.24 Last Class, Final Paper Due.