CORE 101—Symbols and Conceptual Systems
Instructor
Professor Peter Starr, Departments of French & Italian and Comparative Literature
THH 278
740-3170
pstarr@usc.edu
Office Hours:
TTh 11:00-12:30 or by appointment
Lecture
Discussion
TTh
F
F
12:30-1:50
10
11
THH 114
VKC 110
VKC 110
Lab
Discussion Leader
Mary Traester
mary.traester@gmail.com
The Pleasures (and Perils) of Interpretation
The purpose of this course is to examine how we use conceptual systems to make sense
of the cultural products and practices that define the various worlds we inhabit. Drawing
on work from a range of academic disciplines, we will ask the question: what does it
mean to “interpret” something (a short story, an article of law, a dream, a ritual practice, a
technological innovation, a popular novel or film)? With this question come others. By
“interpretation” do we simply mean elucidating that which is abstruse or mysterious? Or
can we not also mean “translating” from one language or conceptual system to another?
Are some interpretations better than others? If so, what counts as a “good” (valid,
truthful, accurate or significant) interpretation? How do narratives of interpretation imply
questions of motive, unwitting effect, and (yes) even pleasure? What is the place of
interpretation in the analysis of culture? How does interpretation inform our sense of
reality itself?
Our readings this semester fall into five interrelated segments. The first examines
attempts to anchor interpretation in such ostensibly objective factors as authorial
intention, textual form, or interpretive history, through readings of Henry James’ The
Turn of the Screw and the Constitution of the United States. We then turn to a series of
texts that embed the interpretive process into narratives of detection: Sophocles’s
Oedipus Rex, Agatha Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and Thomas Pynchon’s
The Crying of Lot 49. The question of human motive takes a distinctly psychological
(indeed, psychoanalytic) turn in a segment that begins with Freud’s Interpretation of
Dreams and ends with Hitchcock’s Vertigo, with stops for work by E.T.A. Hoffmann
(“The Sandman”), Paul Ricoeur, and Laura Mulvey. Our fourth segment juxtaposes a
pair of influential essays on modern culture (by Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin)
with a series of attempts to capture the rich cultural embeddedness of specific
phenomena—Clifford Geertz’s analysis of the Balinese cock-fight, Wolfgang
Schivelbusch’s cultural history of the railroad journey, and Charlie Chaplin’s Modern
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Times. Many of the issues raised throughout the semester then come together in a final
segment on the construction of alternative realities in William Gibson’s cyberpunk novel,
Neuromancer, and in The Matrix.
WEEK 1
January 13
Course Overview
I.
Intention and the Determinacy of Meaning
January 15
Reading
Henry James, The Turn of the Screw, chapters I-XII
WEEK 2
January 20-January 22
Reading:
Henry James, The Turn of the Screw, chapters XIII-XXIV
Selected critical essays TBA
Response Paper #1 Due, January 20
WEEK 3
January 27
Reading:
William J. Brennan, Jr., “The Constitution of the United States:
Contemporary Ratification” (BB)
Edwin Meese III, “Address Before the D.C. Chapter of the
Federalist Society Lawyers Division” (BB)
Robert Bork, “Tradition and Morality in Constitutional Law”
(BB)
Response Paper #2 Due, January 27
January 29
Reading:
II.
Owen Fiss, “Objectivity and Interpretation” (BB)
John Leubsdorf, “Deconstructing the Constitution” (BB)
Narratives of Detection
WEEK 4
February 3-February 5
Reading:
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex
Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, pp. 294-300
Group Presentation, February 3
3
WEEK 5
February 10-February 12
Reading:
Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Response Paper #3 Due, February 10
Group Presentation, February 10
WEEK 6
February 17-February 19
Reading:
III.
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
Group Presentation, February 17
Reading the Psyche
WEEK 7
February 24-26
Reading:
Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, chapters II-IV
---, “Constructions in Analysis” (BB)
Paul Ricoeur, “The Question of Proof in Freud’s Psychoanalytic
Writings” (BB)
Group Presentation, February 24
MID-TERM PAPER DUE
Thursday, February 26
WEEK 8
March 3-March 5
Reading:
Sigmund Freud, “The Uncanny” (BB)
E.T.A. Hoffmann, “The Sandman” (BB)
Response Paper #4 Due, March 3
Group Presentation, March 3
WEEK 9
March 10
Reading:
Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (BB)
Group Presentation, March 10
EVENT
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Wednesday, March 11, THH 301
March 12
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Discussion of Vertigo
SPRING BREAK
March 16-21
IV.
Interpreting Culture
WEEK 10
March 24-March 26
Reading:
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, chapters 1 and 15
Group Presentation, March 24
WEEK 11
March 31-April 2
Reading:
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey, chapters 1-6, 11-13
Response Paper #5 Due, March 31
Group Presentation, March 31
WEEK 12
April 7-April 9
Reading:
V.
Georg Simmel, “The Metropolis and Mental Life” (BB)
Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction” (BB)
Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times (1936) (Leavey Library)
Response Paper # 6 Due, April 7
Group Presentation, April 7
Realities Alternative and Otherwise
WEEK 13
April 14-April 16
Reading:
William Gibson, Neuromancer
Group Presentation, April 14
WEEK 14
April 21
Continued Discussion of Neuromancer
EVENT
The Matrix (The Wachowski Bros., 1999)
Wednesday, April 22, THH 301
5
April 23
Discussion of The Matrix
WEEK 15
April 28-April 30
Reading:
Susan Sontag, “Against Interpretation” (BB)
Course Summary
FINAL PAPER DUE
Thursday, April 30
_______________________
FINAL EXAMINATION
Wednesday, May 13, 2:00 to 4:00
_______________________
Required Booklist
Christie, Agatha. The Mysterious Affair at Styles. New York: Berkley Publishing, 2004.
Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. Trans. James Strachey. New York:
Avon, 1980.
Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 2000.
Gibson, William. Neuromancer. New York: Ace Books, 2000.
James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw. New York: Norton, 1966.
Pynchon, Thomas. The Crying of Lot 49. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006.
Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space
in the 19th Century. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1986.
Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays. New York: Viking Penguin, 1984.
N.B. Texts marked “BB” on the syllabus will be found in our course’s BlackBoard site.
Course Mechanics
Lectures are a necessary evil in a course as ambitious and wide-ranging as this one. But
my principal aim this semester is to have you all (please note the emphasis) become full
and imaginative participants in our classroom dialogue. This requires you not only to
show up for every class with the readings done and the appropriate text(s) at hand
(although this is essential). It also demands of you a willingness to reread. We will be
covering material from a number of academic disciplines, including anthropology, law,
literature, psychology, cultural studies, and film studies. Some of the concepts and
arguments you will encounter may be unfamiliar to you. But you will be surprised how
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clear such seemingly foreign material can become when you give it the benefit of a
second reading.
Your participation in our day-to-day classroom discussions will thus be an important
measure of how actively you are engaging our subject texts. In addition to this, you will
be asked to submit two short (5-6 page) typed papers, due in class on February 26th and
April 30th. These can be close analyses of specific texts we have studied, critical
assessments of significant interpretive problems, or applications of a particular approach
to a well-known text or artifact. You will also be expected to contribute a series of six 1
page typed “response papers” (see schedule above) discussing an aspect of that week’s
reading that you found particularly intriguing.
During the second week of the semester, I will distributing a list of ten groups of three to
four students each, chosen at random. Each group will be assigned a specific group
presentation of no more than 20 minutes, which will normally take place at the beginning
of class on a given Tuesday. Presentations can consist of class debate on topics set out in
advance by the student leaders; exposés (multimedia work is especially encouraged);
applications of a given interpretive method to a specific short text or cultural artifact; or
pretty much anything that will help us gain insight into what is at stake in the material we
are studying that week. Please do run your group’s ideas by me as they materialize—in
office hours, after class, or by email. Also, do let me know if you feel it makes sense to
do your exercise anytime other than first thing Tuesday.
There will also be a final exam, the format of which will be announced later in the
semester.
Your grade for this course will be computed as follows:
Class Participation, including
Group Presentations
Midterm Paper
Final Paper
Discussion Section Participation
Response Papers
Final Exam
20%
15%
15%
15%
15%
20%
Attendance at the TTh lectures, the F discussion sections, and at our three evening events
is required in all cases. Students who miss more than a couple of class meetings will find
their participation grade appreciably lowered. All papers must be handed in on the date
specified on the syllabus above. Late papers will be marked down by a third of a letter
grade (e.g., from A- to B+) for every day they are late.
Students whose work shows marked improvement over the course of the semester will
find that improvement reflected in their participation grades.
Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to
register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of
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verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the
letter is delivered to me as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301
and is open 8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. The phone number for DSP is
(213) 740-0776.