MALLT /CompLit 707: Seminar in Methods of Literary Analysis
Subtitle: The Bible and Literary Analysis
Asking the question, “What did the Bible mean?” has engaged the discipline of historicalliterary analysis. Asking the question, “What does the Bible mean?” has engaged the
discipline of theology and historical-theological biblical exegesis. However, asking the
question, “What might the Bible mean? Has the potential to open up to the investigator
the multivalent layers and possibilities of meaning, which has attracted various
approaches of literary analysis. To this end, this Graduate Seminar aims to introduce
students to the innovative avenues of utilizing and applying various theories and
methodologies of literary analysis to the Hebrew Bible/The Old Testament and the
Christian Bible/The New Testament (as focus texts). Accordingly, the utilization of a
variety of theories and methodologies of literary analysis will not only unearth latent
aesthetic mechanisms of the Biblical texts, but will also demonstrate how these
mechanisms serve and enhance the ideological (religious, moral, historical, national,
ritual, social) messages that are molded and delivered by these Biblical texts. Students
will have the opportunity to engage, utilize and apply in an analysis of Biblical texts
structuralism, post-structuralism and deconstruction to name a few; but also feminism
and gender analysis, intertextuality, ideological criticism, postmodern theory and
postcolonial theory.