ENGLISH 635-401: LITERARY
THEORY AND CRITICISM SPRING
2004 SYLLABUS
Instructor: Jake Jakaitis
Office: HH 220
Office Telephone: 812-237-3940
e-mail:
ejjakai@isugw.indstate.edu
Classroom: ROOT A108
Meeting Time: 6:159:00 p.m. Th
Office Hours: 1:002:00 MTh;
5:006:00 p.m. Th
Web:
http://isu.indstate.edu/jakaitis/
The following syllabus is a tentative schedule and list of readings; I reserve
the right to change it to suit our needs. This syllabus is also posted on my
website @ http://isu.indstate.edu/jakaitis/. If you miss a class session, please
visit the site to remain informed about schedule changes and other updates.
In fact, you would do well to visit the site often as I will regularly add links to
information about the authors or theoretical perspectives covered in our
readings. Some of our assigned readings will only be available on the web;
these will be indicated as blue links at the web site. Supplemental readings
will be passed out in class. For Professor’s Pack readings, all page numbers
in parentheses refer to original source pagination, giving you a general idea of
each assignment's length.
Texts:
Con Davis, Robert and Ronald Schleifer. Eds. Contemporary
Literary Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies. 4th ed.
New York: Longman, 1998.
Ozeki, Ruth. My Year of Meats. (1998) New York: Penguin
Books, 1999.
Professor’s Pack. (Purchase your Professor’s Pack at The Paper
Chase, 667 Wabash. Telephone: 234-8433.)
(All readings are in Contemporary Literary Criticism unless
otherwise indicated)
WEEK ONE: JANUARY 15
COURSE INTRODUCTION [HANDOUTS]
Nelson, Cary. “Facts have No Meaning: Writing Literary History in the Shadow of
Poststructuralism” College Literature 20.2
(June 1993): 1-12.
Baker, Peter. “Literary Theory and the Role of the University.”from College
Literature 22.2 (June 1995): 1-15.
WEEK TWO: JANUARY 22
EXPLORING CRITICAL METHODOLOGY
Ozeki, Ruth. My Year of Meats. (1998) New York: Penguin Books, 1999:
pp.
Read the entire novel for our January 22 meeting and come to class prepared
to discuss how you might write about Ozeki’s text were you assigned to do
so. Would you be inclined to write about gender in the novel? If so, would
masculinity, femininity, or some other gender issue be your emphasis? In
your view, is Ozeki supporting or exploding gender stereotypes through her
portrayals of Jane, Sloan, Akiko, Joichi, Suzuki, Oh, Bunny Dunn and the
other American wives selected for the television show? Is there a space for a
queer theory analysis of Ozeki’s novel, given Akiko’s uncertainty about her
own sexuality and Lara and Dyann’s relationship? What openings for
analysis and critique are provided by Ozeki’s comments on truth and
authenticity? On global diversity and race? On globalization, commerce and
the media and their relation to identity?
In other words, I’d like you to read this novel assuming that you have to write
about it and be prepared to discuss how you would apply your currently held
beliefs about how one writes about literature to this text. For most of us,
these are unselfconsciously enacted practices; we read, we identify issues and
concerns, we construct an argument and we seek supporting examples. We
write and discover and ending along the way, however much we may have
preconceived the analysis. The process is largely intuitive and habitual. It
will help us to establish a clear direction for the course and for our future
discussions if we could lay bare in this opening discussion some of the
assumptions and intuitively enacted practices that govern our common
analyses of literary texts.
Over the course of the semester, as we examine various critical
methodologies and theoretical perspectives, we will return to My Year of
Meats, regularly speculating about how theory might open the novel to
previously unthought entries.
WEEK THREE: JANUARY 29
WHAT IS LITERARY STUDIES? I
“Introduction” (19-33); “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (Eliot: 33-38);
“The Formalist Critics” and “The Language of Paradox” (Brooks in
Professor’s Pack: 52-70) and “The Intentional Fallacy” (Wimsatt and
Beardsley in Professor’s Pack: 1382-1391)..
Before reading Brooks’ “The Language of Paradox,” review John
Donne’s “The Canonization,” which appears as the appendix to the essay
on pages 69-70.
WEEK FOUR: FEBRUARY 5
WHAT IS LITERARY STUDIES? II
“Art as Technique” (Shklovsky in the Professor’s Pack: 3-23), “Black
Critics and the Pitfalls of Canon Formation” (West: 50-56); “Introduction:
The Humanist Myth” (Graff: 57-67); & “Lessons of History” (Viswanathan:
68-86).
WEEK FIVE: FEBRUARY 12
WHAT IS LITERARY THEORY? I
“Introduction” (87-99); “The Search for Grounds in Literary Study” (Miller:
115-128); & “The Race for Theory” (Christian in Professor’s Pack: 37-49),
and “‘A Woman Speaks…I Am Woman and Not White’: Politics of Voice,
Tactical Essentialism, and Cultural Intervention in Audre Lorde’s Activist
Poetics and Practice” (Carr in Professor’s Pack: 133-151).
WEEK SIX: FEBRUARY 19
WHAT IS LITERARY THEORY II?
“Postmodern Blackness” (hooks: 129-135); “Literary Theory and Third
World Literature” (Ahmad: 136-156); “The Discourse of Liberal Feminism
and Third World Women’s Texts” (Mitra & Mitra in the Professor’s Pack:
55-63)& “The Politics of Knowledge” (Said: 157-166).