Interpretation, Theory & Research Methods in Literary Studies
Autumn 2015, 946Q3
Giuseppe Arcimboldo, The Librarian (c. 1570)
Module Tutors:
Dr Michael Jonik
Dr Katie Walter
Module Description
The purpose of this module is to offer an advanced introduction to theoretical and practical
issues related to the methodology of English study. It combines theoretical investigations
that consider how literature functions and why, with practical methods about how to
organise and develop a research project at MA level. It is structured so that students can
select a period, genre, or conceptual model on which to focus their practical work and
assignments in research methods. This module explores both the philosophical and
material conditions of literary research, in terms of key issues such as writing, memory,
bibliography, authorship, and the archive. The module seeks to advance students’
aptitudes as theoretical interpreters and to develop their skill as critical writers and
researchers working in library and archive, introducing them to a range of useful sources
of information, both printed and digital, including catalogues, archival special collections,
periodicals, databases and web resources.
Learning and teaching
The module’s weekly two-hour sessions are taught in a variety of formats to suit the
different areas covered. As well as seminars, there are hands-on workshops in which
students gain practical experience of the research skills they are learning. The structure of
the module will alternate (not necessarily week-by-week) between sessions focused on
theoretical analysis and debate and sessions oriented toward developing practical
research skills. We will visit local libraries and archives, as well as the new Sussex
Humanities Lab: https://humslab.wordpress.com/
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module students will be able to:
1. Locate significant and critically assess relevant research materials in printed
catalogues and reference works, archives, electronic databases, and the internet.
2. Understand and demonstrate erudition and critical independence in the evaluation
of theoretical issues related to the study of English literature across a wide
historical context and in the conceptual questions posed in undertaking research in
English.
3. Demonstrate a developed understanding of how to employ archives and other
repositories of primary documents in research problem-solving (where appropriate,
acquire basic palaeographical skills).
4. Prepare and deliver a clear, well-timed oral presentation appropriate to the topic
and the audience, using appropriate supporting materials to demonstrate
sophisticated research.
5. Demonstrate a command of the principles of professional academic conventions in
written presentation.
Assessment
Students taking this module will be required to:
1. compile a brief bibliography (25 items) (20% of the weighting for the module);
2. deliver a 5 minute presentation (10% of the weighting for module);
3. write a 2,000-word critical review of 3-4 different sources (e.g. monograph, chapter
from essay collection, journal article, electronic resource); (70% of the weighting for
module).
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1. Bibliography. Students will compile a bibliography of between 20-25 items comprising
a list of primary and secondary works that includes monographs, essay collections, journal
articles, visual arts and other cultural artefacts appropriate to investigate if undertaking
research on a chosen topic in English. Students may choose their own topic;
demonstrating their ability to use research tools effectively and to identify appropriate
sources for a research project.
2. Presentation. Students will give an oral presentation, of no more than five minutes,
explaining how and why they chose they chose their keyword, how and why they
constructed the bibliography as they did, attending to the process of discovering as well as
selecting relevant material. Which sources were used and why? What makes some
sources better than others? How do you establish the relevance / significance of the items
selected in relation to the proposed project?
Students will be assessed on their use of appropriate conventions in terms of the
presentation of the bibliography, the range and relevance of selected items. In the
presentation, they will be assessed further on the clarity and insight of the commentary on
the bibliography offered in the oral presentation. Students may use PowerPoint when
delivering the presentation if they wish but this is not a formal requirement. Students must
supply a copy of their bibliography to each member of the group. The mark (worth up to a
combined weighting of 30%) for this aspect of the assessment process will be based on
the quality and accuracy of the bibliography and the clarity of the oral presentation.
3. 2,000-word critical review. The review is an assessment of 3-4 texts chosen from, for
example, a monograph, a biography, a scholarly edition, a chapter from an essay
collection, a journal article. The 3-4 texts may or may not be texts included in the
bibliography exercise. The review should take the form of a critical summary of the
materials that have been selected, i.e. an account of their strengths and weaknesses and
how they are placed within a critical field.
Show and Tell
In the spirit of enterprising archival research, your task will be to go to an archive or
museum near you, and find a text, an object, an image. Try describing it—e.g. draw on
and add to the catalogue description of it, and come prepared to say a few words about it
the first week – why you chose it, how we might understand it, etc.
Materials Recommended for Student Purchase
The required primary texts we will be using are listed here:
1. Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings (Penguin,
2000)
2. Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, trans. Barbara Johnson (University of Chicago
Press, 1981)
3. D. F. McKenzie, Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (Cambridge University
Press, 1999)
4. David C. Greetham, Textual Scholarship: An Introduction (Garland Publishing,
1992, 1994)
5. Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zorn (Pimlico,
1999)
6. Roland Barthes, Image Music Text: Essays Selected and Translated by Stephen
Heath (Frontal Press, 1977)
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7. Michel Foucault, Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and
Interviews by Michel Foucault, ed. Donald F. Bouchard, ed. and trans. Donald F.
Bouchard and Sherry Simon (Cornell University Press, 1977)
8. Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, trans. Eric Prenowitz
(University of Chicago Press, 1995)
9. Wolfgang Ernst, Digital Memory and the Archive, ed. Jussi Parikka (University of
Minnesota Press, 2013)
10. Ludmilla Jordonova, The Look of the Past: Visual and Material Evidence in
Historical Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
Optional Summer Reading
These are some suggested titles to help orient our investigations, and to give you a head
start on some of the reading. For the first meeting we will cover the material listed in the
week by week outline. A number of these texts are easily available and recommended for
purchase (indicated by ‘RSP’).
Roland Barthes, Image Music Text: Essays Selected and Translated by
Stephen Heath (Frontal Press, 1977) (Recommended Student Purchase
(hereafter RSP))
Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zorn
(Pimlico, 1999) [This is not the most reliable translation, but it is one of the more
easily accessible ones] (RSP)
Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle, This Thing Called Literature: Reading,
Thinking, Writing (Routledge, 2015) [This is very much an introductory text, but it
will be useful to remind yourself of key methods and principles before beginning
this module]
Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings
(Penguin, 2000) [we will read selections from this throughout the term] (RSP)
Alexis E. Ramsey et al, eds., Working in the Archives: Practical Research
Methods for Rhetoric and Composition (Southern Illinois University, 2010) [An
equivalent book on the archive would be acceptable to read instead]
Secondary materials will be found on Study Direct and in the Sussex Library. You must
bring your book and any Study Direct (SD) materials printed out with you to each
seminar, so we can work on the texts in detail. There are copies of recommended for
purchase materials available at the campus bookshop, which is adjacent to the library.
Reading Schedule (Subject to change)
1. Introduction: Literature and Memory
Core Reading:
Sigmund Freud, “A Note upon the ‘Mystic Writing Pad,’” General
Psychological Theory, Chapter XIII (1925). (Study Direct (hereinafter SD))
Jorge Luis Borges, “Funes the Memorious”, from Labyrinths: Selected
Stories and Other Writings (Penguin, 2000), pp. 87-95 (RSP)
Gilles Deleuze, “Literature and Life”, from Essays Critical and Clinical, trans.,
Daniel W. Smith and Michael A. Greco (University of Minnesota Press, 1997), pp.
1-6 (SD)
Further Reading:
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Jacques Derrida, “Freud and the Scene of Writing,” from Writing and
Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago University Press, 1978), 196-231 (SD)
Torsten Caeners, “Memory and Memory Work,” from Introducing Criticism in
the 21st Century, 2nd edn, ed. Julian Wolfreys (Edinburgh University Press, 2015),
pp. 282-307 (SD)
2. Writing
Core Reading:
Plato, Phaedrus, from John M. Cooper, ed., Plato: Complete Works (Hackett
Publishing Company, 1997), pp. 506-56
Jacques Derrida, “Plato’s Pharmacy”, from Dissemination, trans. Barbara
Johnson (University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 61-119(RSP)
Further Reading:
Christopher Norris, “Derrida on Plato”, from Derrida (Harvard University
Press, 1987), pp. 28-45
3. Bibliography, Visit to The Keep
N.B. This session will be held at The Keep (directions will be available on SD)
and will start at the earlier time of 10am (finishing at 1pm).
Core Reading:
D. F. McKenzie, Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (Cambridge
University Press, 1999), pp. 7-76 (RSP)
David C. Greetham, Textual Scholarship: An Introduction (Garland
Publishing, 1992, 1994) (RSP) [Please read the Introduction and, from Chapter 1,
on ‘Enumerative and Systematic Bibliography’, pp. 13-25 - you should also dip into
the ‘Resources for Scholarly Research’ in the remainder of this chapter. Look also
at Appendix II ‘Types of Scholarly Edition’. For those interested in working with
manuscripts, you will find it useful to have a look at Chapters 2 and 5; for those
interested in working with the printed book, Chapters 3 and 6]
Additional Preparation Prepare a draft bibliography to discuss in the session.
4. The Bible and Hermeneutics
Core Reading:
St Paul, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, King James Version [you might
also read more widely, e.g. from Genesis, Song of Songs, the Psalms, or 1 and 2
Corinthians]
Hugh of Saint-Victor, Peter Abelard, and Peter Lombard, extracts, in
Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism, c.1100-c.1375: The Commentary Tradition,
ed. A. J. Minnis and A. B. Scott, rev. ed. (Oxford 1988, 2003), pp. 65-112 (SD)
Further Reading:
Gerald Bruns, ‘What is hermeneutics about?’ (SD) (pp. 1-20); and “Scriptura
sui ipsius interpres: Luther, Modernity, and the Foundations of Philosophical
Hermeneutics” (pp.125-38), from Hermeneutics Ancient and Modern (Yale
University Press, 1992); ‘Secrecy and Understanding’, (SD) from Inventions:
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Writing, Textuality and Understanding in Literary History (Yale University Press,
1982), pp. 24-30
5. Language, Document, History
Core Reading:
Jorge Luis Borges, “Library of Babel”, from Labyrinths: Selected Stories and
Other Writings (Penguin, 2000), pp. 78-86
Jorge Luis Borges, “The Total Library”, from Selected Non-Fictions edited by
Eliot Weiberger (Penguin, 1999), pp. 214-16 (SD)
Walter Benjamin, “Unpacking My Library” (pp. 61-69); “The Task of the
Translator” (pp. 70-82); “Theses on the Philosophy of History” (pp. 245-55), from
Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zorn (Pimlico,
1999) [This is not the most reliable translation, but it is one of the more easily
accessible ones] (RSP)
Giorgio Agamben, “Language and History: Linguistic and Historical
Categories in Benjamin’s Thought,” from Potentialities: Collected Essays in
Philosophy, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford University Press, 1999), pp. 4861(SD)
Further Reading:
Roger Chartier, Inscription and Erasure: Literature and Written Culture from
the Eleventh to the Eighteenth Century, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2008), e.g. Chapters 1 and 3.
JUBILEE LIBRARY WORKSHOP I, Wednesday 21 October, 2-4pm
The workshop will take place in the Jubilee Library in Brighton (directions on SD).
We will work with the Special Collections librarian, Margaret Curson, on a project
working with some of the library’s manuscript and book collections.
6. The Author
Core Reading:
Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author”, from Image Music Text: Essays
Selected and Translated by Stephen Heath (Frontal Press, 1977), pp. 142-48
(RSP)
Michel Foucault, “What is an Author?” from Language, Counter-Memory,
Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews by Michel Foucault, ed. Donald F.
Bouchard, ed. and trans. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon (Cornell University
Press, 1977), pp. 113-38 (RSP)
St Bonaventure, extracts from Commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences,
edited in Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism, c.1100-c.1375: The Commentary
Tradition, ed. A. J. Minnis and A. B. Scott, rev. ed. (Oxford 1988, 2003), pp. 228233 [although you might read the whole extract, pp. 223-33]
Emily Dickinson, “This Was a Poet”; “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?”
Jorge Luis Borges, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” (pp. 62-71);
“Borges and I” (pp. 282-83), from Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings
(Penguin, 2000) (RSP)
Further Reading:
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William K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley, “The Intentional Fallacy” (pp.
3-20) (SD); “The Affective Fallacy” (pp. 21-40), from The Verbal Icon: Studies in the
Meaning of Poetry (University of Kentucky Press, 1954)
Roland Barthes, “From Work to Text”, from Image Music Text: Essays
Selected and Translated by Stephen Heath (Frontal Press, 1977), pp. 155-64
(RSP)
Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle, “The Author”, from An Introduction to
Literature, Criticism and Theory (Routledge, 2014, first pub. 1995), pp. 19-27(SD)
Matthew Kirschenbaum, “What Is an @uthor?” Los Angeles Review of
Books (6 February, 2015)
http://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/uthor/#.VNT8TubjONw.facebook
JUBILEE LIBRARY WORKSHOP II, Wednesday 28 October, 2-4pm.
The second of two workshop held at the Jubilee Library in Brighton.
7. Reading Week
8. Material Evidence and the Archive
Core Reading:
Ludmilla Jordonova, The Look of the Past: Visual and Material Evidence in
Historical Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2012) (RSP)
Robert Smithson, ‘Some Void Thoughts on Museums’ pp.41-42; ‘What is a
Museum?’ pp. 43-51; ‘Spiral Jetty’ pp. 143-53; ‘Cultural Confinement’ pp. 154-156;
’Earth’ pp.177-187 from Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings, ed. Jack Flam
(University of California Press, 1996)
Further Reading:
Irit Rogoff, “Studying Visual Culture”, from The Visual Culture Reader, ed.
Nicholas Mirzoeff (Routledge, 1998), pp. 24-36 (SD)
9. Archive Fever
Core Reading:
Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, trans. Eric
Prenowitz (University of Chicago Press, 1995) (RSP)
Further Reading:
Achille Mbembe, “The Power of the Archive and its Limits”, from Refiguring
the Archive, ed. Carolyn Hamilton and Verne Harris (Springer, 2002), pp. 19-28
(SD)
10. The Politics of Literature/Archives
Core Reading:
Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse
on Language, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (Vintage Books, 2010, first pub. 1972),
pp. 1-17,118-131
Jacques Rancière, “The Politics of Literature”, from The Politics of Literature
(Polity Press, 2011), pp. 3-30 (SD)
Emily Apter, “Against World Literature”, World Literature in Theory, ed. David
Damrosch (John Wiley, 2014), pp. 345-62 (SD)
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Selections from Barbara Cassin, ed., The Dictionary of Untranslatables: A
Philosophical Lexicon, trans. Stephen Rendall et al (Princeton University Press,
2014)
Further Reading:
Michel Foucault, “Intellectuals and Power”, from Language, CounterMemory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews by Michel Foucault, ed. Donald
F. Bouchard, ed. and trans. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon (Cornell
University Press, 1977), pp. 205-17 (RSP)
Michel Foucault, “What is Critique?”, from The Politics of Truth, ed. Sylvère
Lotringer, trans. Lysa Hochroth & Catherine Porter (Semiotext(e), 2007), pp. 41-82
(SD)
Wendy Brown, “Untimeliness and Punctuality: Critical Theory in Dark Times”,
from Edgework: Critical Essays on Knowledge and Politics (Princeton University
Press, 2005), pp. 1-16 (SD)
PALAEOGRAPHY WORKSHOP, at The Keep, Wednesday 25 November, 2-5pm with
Christopher Whittick
11. Digital Archives – Visit to Sussex Hum Lab
Student Presentations I
Core Reading:
Wolfgang Ernst, “Archives in Transition” pp. 95-101; “Discontinuities” pp.
113-140; “Telling versus Counting” pp. 147-157; “Archive Rumblings” pp. 193-203
from Digital Memory and the Archive, ed. Jussi Parikka (University of Minnesota
Press, 2013) (RSP)
Further Reading:
Vilem Flusser, Does Writing Have a Future? trans. Nancy M. Roth
(University of Minnesota Press, 2011)
DIGITIAL HUMANITIES FORUM, Sussex Humanities Lab, Tuesday 1 December,
5pm-6.30pm – ‘The Politics and Persistence of Digital Archives’
12. Student Presentations II
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