St. Jerome’s University in the University of Waterloo
Department of English
Engl 251B Section 03
Criticism 2
Term 2013
TTh 2:30 – 3:50pm, STJ 3012
Instructor Information
Instructor: Diana Lobb
Office: STJ 1026
Office Hours: TTh 10:30 – 11:20am, STJ 1026, or by appointment
Email: df2lobb@uwaterloo.ca
Course Description
Catalogue:
An introduction to the theorizing of literary and non-literary texts. Emphasizing
contemporary theories, the course will focus on the text, the reader, and culture.
Section:
In this course we will examine different approaches to the study of literary and nonliterary texts. This course will focus on the different ways in which the nature of
language and the relationship of language to humanity have been and continue to be
explored. Literature's position as both an act of communication and an act of creative
expression creates an interesting opportunity to test the possibilities of different
theoretical perspectives on interpretation.
Throughout we will read theoretical excerpts, glossary entries, and literary and nonliterary texts. Emphasis will be placed on the development of critical skills, including the
acquisition of critical vocabulary, and the practical engagement of contemporary
theories through journal exercises, in-class examinations, and an essay.
Course Goals and/or Learning Outcomes
-
To develop analytical reading skills.
To develop essay writing skills.
To develop a vocabulary of literary critical terminology.
To develop critical thinking skills.
Texts
Required:
Recommended:
M. H. Abrams & Geoffery Galt Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 10th Ed.
Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan, ed., Literary Theory: An anthology, 2nd Ed.
Atwood et al. The New Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English
Kingsley Amis, The Green Man
The Little, Brown Handbook, current Canadian Edition
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Course Requirements and Assessment
Marking Scheme:
Journal Entries
Essay
Tests:
Final Exam:
10%
35%
25%
30%
Assignments & Evaluation:
10%
Journal Entries
These are due on Tuesdays, in keeping with the following logic. Respond to the critical reading
assigned for an upcoming class (ie no more than two classes hence) or to a story) in terms of the
theoretical approach currently under discussion. Keep the entry short (1-2 double spaced
pages). Try to engage the material analytically but also be sensitive to and honest about your
impressions. The journal entries provide you with an opportunity to mimic or ventriloquize a
critical approach by using key vocabulary and concepts. Have fun with them.
Journal entries will be marked on a modified pass/fail basis (ie A/B/fail). I'll record your best ten.
25%
Mid-Term Test – June 11th during regularly scheduled class meeting
35%
Major Essay – due July 23rd
8 – 10 pages
Write an essay on some aspect of Kingsley Amis's The Green Man, deploying select critical
vocabulary from one theory of literature. Emphasis should be on the application of a theory (or
theories) to engage in critical analysis of the novel rather than a critique of the theory itself.
Marks will be given for consistency and depth of engagement of the chosen theoretical
approach, for the level of believability or demonstrated commitment to the approach taken
(limited to the confines of the essay itself, of course), as well as clarity and strength of thesis and,
within the parameters of the theory, argumentation.
The essay must include a research component. Find at least one article that actively applies a
contemporary literary theory to the work on which you are writing. The critical essay may speak
directly to the work or to a significant context (social, historical or critical) within which the work
circulates. Engage the argument of the article in your essay. Cite the article in appropriate MLA
format.
30%
Final Exam – scheduled by Registrar’s Office
The exam will be comprehensive. You are responsible for all the readings undertaken in class,
including the novel. It will be a closed book exam and may include short answer, passage
recognition, and short essay questions. It may also include an exercise in application by inviting
critical engagement of a sight passage.
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Course Outline / Class Schedule
Jan. 7th
Jan. 9th
Introduction
How is meaning made?
Formalism, Structuralism, Poststructuralism.
Jan. 14th
Jan. 16th
Why does the text have a particular
meaning: because of how it is written
or because of how it is read?
Rhetoric, Phenomenology, Reader
Response Theory
Jan 21st
Jan. 23rd
Jan. 28th
Jan. 30th
Essay Writing Workshop
When is meaning made and does it
always stay the same?
Historicism, Postmodernism
For this group of critical readings we
will be working with Curtis' "The
Skinhead Hamlet" and Mueller's "Die
Hamletmachine." Links to the scripts of
both of these plays are available in the
content section of the Learn site.
Feb. 4th
Feb. 6th
Feb. 11th
Feb. 13th
From Canadian Short Stories
Ross, "The Lamp at Noon"
From Literary Theory
Shklovsky, "Art as Technique"
Wimsatt Jr., "The Structure of the Concrete
Universal"
de Sausseure, "Course in General Linguistics"
From Canadian Short Stories
Wiebe, "Where is the Voice Coming From"
From Literary Theory
Barthes, "Mythologies"
Derrida, "Differance"
Derrida, "Semiology and Grammatology"
From Canadian Short Stories
Kinsella, "Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa"
From Literary Theory
Kant "Transcendental Aesthetic"
Corbett, "Classical Rhetoric"
From Canadian Short Stories
Wallace, "For Puzzled in Wisconsin"
From Literary Theory
Fish, "Not so much a Teaching as an Intangling"
Fish, "Interpretive Communities"
From Canadian Short Stories
King, "One Good Story, That One"
From Literary Theory
Bourdieu, "Distinction"
From Literary Theory
Nietzsche, "On Truth and Lying in an Extra-moral
Sense"
Nietzsche, "The Will to Power"
Foucault, "The Archaeology of Knowledge"
Lyotard, "The Postmodern Condition"
Deleuze and Guattari, "A Thousand Plateaus"
Midterm Test
Where is meaning created: in the
psyche or the state?
Psychoanalysis and Psychology, Political
Criticisms
Freud, "The Uncanny"
Lacan, "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the
Function of the I"
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For the remainder of the course we will
be working with Amis's The Green Man
Feb. 18th
Feb. 20th
Feb. 25th
Reading Week
Reading Week
Feb. 27th
Mar. 4th
Mar. 6th
Who is allowed to make meaning?
Does writing have a sex? A sexuality?
A skin colour? A nationality?
Feminism, Gender Studies, Critical Race
Theory, Postcolonial Studies
Mar. 11th
Mar. 13th
Mar. 18th
Mar. 20th
Mar. 25th
What is literature? Is it art or artifact?
Cultural Studies
Mar. 27th
Apr. 1st
Apr. 3rd
available through UW Library access to JSTOR
Helene Cixous, "The Laugh of the Medusa,"
Signs, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Summer), 1976.
Gramsci, "Hegemony"
Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State
Apparatuses"
Zizek, "The Sublime Object of Ideology"
Lorde, "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women
Redefining Difference"
Anzaldua, "Borderlands/La Frontera"
Walder, "History"
McClintock, "The Angel of Progress: Pitfalls of
the Term Postcolonial"
Spivak, "Three Women's Texts and a Critique of
Imperialism"
Said, "Jane Austen and Empire"
Heng, "A Great Way to Fly: Nationalism, the
State, and the Varieties of Third-World
Feminism"
Thiong'o, "Decolonizing the Mind"
Okonkwo, "Casualties of Freedom"
Lawson, "The Anxious Proximities of Settler
(Post)colonial Relations"
Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction"
Horkhiemer and Adorno, "The Culture Industry
as Mass Deception
Fiske, "Culture, Ideology, Interpellation"
De Certeau, "The Practice of Everyday Life"
Exam Review
A Partial Glossary Terms
The following entries provide helpful complementary perspective.
Aestheticism
Discourse Analysis
Ambiguity
Ecocriticism
Archetypal Criticism
Enlightenment
Author and authorship
Feminist Criticism
Canon of Literature
Formalism
Deconstruction
Gender Criticism
Dialogic Criticism
Humanism
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Interpretation and Hermeneutics
Interpretation: Typological and Allegorical
Marxist Criticism
Metaphor, Theories of
Modernism and postmodernism
New Historicism
Phenomenology and Criticism
Poststructuralism
Psychological or Psychoanalytic Criticism
Reader-Response Criticism
Rhetoric and rhetorical criticism
Structuralist Criticism
Late Work
Late Essays: Essays are due in hard copy at the beginning of the class noted in the schedule and
electronically to Turnitin via the Learn website for the course. All late assignments will be penalized 3%
per day, including weekends (i.e. Saturday and Sunday = 6%). Late papers must be signed and dated by
one of the secretaries in the main office and submitted to the departmental mailbox (St. Jerome`s 2nd
floor). Please note that essays will not be accepted via e-mail or after the term’s last day of class.
Final Examination Policy
For Fall 2014, the established examination period is April.8-24, 2014. The schedule will be available in
October. Students should be aware that student travel plans are not acceptable grounds for granting an
alternative final examination time (see: http://www.registrar.uwaterloo.ca/exams/finalexams.html).
Accommodation for Illness or Unforeseen Circumstances:
The instructor follows the practices of the University of Waterloo in accommodating students who have
documented reasons for missing quizzes or exams. See
http://www.registrar.uwaterloo.ca/students/accom_illness.html Make-up Tests/Extensions: Except in
extraordinary circumstances, all extensions must be requested by the Friday of the week prior to the
essay’s due date. I reserve the right to request appropriate documentation to support the request for
extension (e.g. doctor’s note).
Correspondance
Students using email to contact me must include their first and last names, student number, and course
in which they are enrolled in the email subject line. Email is an efficient method to contact me to arrange
for appointments or to ask simple questions (i.e. questions that require a yes or no answer). Most
questions arising from this class, however, will require face-to-face discussion and should be dealt with
in class or during my office hours. If you are unable to attend my scheduled office hours please contact
me to arrange an alternate meeting time. Essays and assignments submitted by email, or as email
attachments, will not be accepted.
Information on Plagiarism Detection
Turnitin.com: Plagiarism detection software (Turnitin) will be used to screen assignments in this course.
This is being done to verify that use of all material and sources in assignments is documented. In the first
week of the term, details will be provided about the arrangements for the use of Turnitin in this course.
Note: Students must be given a reasonable option if they do not want to have their assignment screened
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by Turnitin. See http://uwaterloo.ca/academic-integrity/integrity-waterloo-faculty/turnitin-waterloo for
more information.
Important Information
Academic Integrity: In order to maintain a culture of academic integrity, members of the University of
Waterloo are expected to promote honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility.
Academic Integrity Office (UW): A resource for students and instructors
Discipline: A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity, to avoid committing
academic offences, and to take responsibility for his/her actions. A student who is unsure whether an
action constitutes an offence, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offences (e.g., plagiarism,
cheating) or about “rules” for group work/collaboration should seek guidance from the course
professor, academic advisor, or the Associate Dean. When misconduct has been found to have occurred,
disciplinary penalties will be imposed under the University of Waterloo Policy 70 (Student Petitions and
Grievances). For information on categories of offenses and types of penalties, students should refer to
the St. Jerome's University Policy on Student Discipline.
Grievance: A student who believes that a decision affecting some aspect of his/her university life has
been unfair or unreasonable may have grounds for initiating a grievance. For students who decide to file
a grievance, students should refer to University of Waterloo Policy 70 (Student Petitions and
Grievances). For more information, students should contact the Associate Dean of St. Jerome’s
University.
Appeals: A student may appeal the finding and/or penalty in a decision made under the St. Jerome’s
University Policy on Student Discipline or the St. Jerome’s University Policy on Student Petitions and
Grievances if a ground for an appeal can be established. In such a case, read University of Waterloo
Policy 72 (Student Appeals).
Note for students with disabilities: The AccessAbility Services (AS) Office, located in Needles Hall,
Room 1132, collaborates with all academic departments to arrange appropriate accommodations for
students with disabilities without compromising the academic integrity of the curriculum. If you require
academic accommodations to lessen the impact of your disability, please register with the AS Office at
the beginning of each academic term.
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