11
AN3009MA03
North American Department, IEAS, University of Debrecen, Spring 2011
Basic Courses
Topics in North American Culture and Literature
AMERICAN LITERARY AND CULTURAL THEORY
Spring 2011 Zoltán Abádi-Nagy, office: main bldg., 120/2
M 12:00-13:40 Phone: (52) 512-900/22507 (no voice mail)
Rm.: main bldg. 121 E-mail:<>
Office hours: M 13:45-14:45
and by appointment.
Make-up classes, when needed:
Prospectus
Relying on students’ basic knowledge of literary and cultural theories acquired through a comprehensive survey in the B.A. training, this course focuses specifically on major trends in American literary criticism, literary theory, and cultural studies. The schools, trends, and individuals to be focused on are ones that have been most influential in the United States in the 20th century, and (most of them) have decisively shaped the study of the human sciences worldwide. The course-work will therefore involve reading and discussing individual texts by major American theorists and critics. Although texts construe highly specialized problems, they are also representative of larger-scale intellectual movements within the American academe. The schools/trends and authors to be covered include: early-twentieth-century critics of culture, New Humanism, the New Criticism, the New York Intellectuals, Marxism, the Chicago Aristotelians, speech act theory, structuralism, myth criticism, objective interpretation, neopragmatism, cultural anthropology, reader response criticism, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism (the Yale Critics), feminist theory, body studies, gender theory, postcolonial theory, theories of race and ethnicity, New Historicism, disability theory, cyborg theory, hypertext theory. The interpretive discussions will be facilitated by assigned brief introductions or brief introductory lecture segments.
Status of course: disciplinary MA, American studies
Credit: 5 credits
Class Format: discussion combined with brief lecture sections
General Course Requirements
Students will be expected to attend class faithfully, to keep up with the readings, and to come to class prepared with questions and comments for discussion. The classes will be conducted in an atmosphere in which the instructor and the students take the time to discuss readings and share their insights. We can set aside part of any class meeting for informal discussion of our work if needed.
Specific Requirements
Iformed attendance; participation in class discussion; presentation; position papers; writing workshop; in-class essay; out-of-class essay; final test.
Presentation
One ten-minute presentation: a critical discussion of one non-PP assigned text, including those in the bonus section. Handouts are required. The presenter’s aim is to generate a good debate by using the interrogative (question-and-answer) method. Sign-up deadline for presentations: February 21. (Maximum one presentation per class session.)
Reading Assignments
Each student will read the asssigned material NOT indicated as PP for class discussion purposes as they are coming up. For items of reading assignments indicated as PP see “Position papers” in the “Writing assignments” section below.
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Writing Assignments
POSITION PAPERS—Each student will read all items indicated PP and devote a two-page position paper to those items PER CLASS. The papers must be word-processed (double-spaced). They must also be COMPARATIVE, organized by any ONE common feature the student detects in the writings in question. The comparison may involve non-PP essays from the same or from any other class ONLY IN CASES in which only one PP reading is assigned. As nine classes indicate PP texts, nine position papers will result. Position papers will not be checked class by class, but, no matter when you write them, all nine must be submitted in printed versions in the last class session. It is wise to keep working on them continuously. It is also a good idea to use position papers as steppingstones towards your out-of-class essay projects. (This will be explained in class.) Each paper should be numbered and should specify its class (e.g., “1. September 26/2”), theme, as well as authors and essays discussed. Any PP text can be replaced by any PP item in the “Bonus” section.
IN-CLASS ESSAY—In-class essay topics will be based on the texts discussed up to that point (more about it in class).
OUT-OF-CLASS ESSAY—The out-of-class essay (eight double-spaced, word-processed pages) will be a comparative discussion of assigned texts chosen from at least five of the twenty-two schools (”Bonus” section included). The essay must be organized by a relevant topic of your own designing. If you have difficulties in designing a topic, ask for a conference session. The “Works Cited” section of the essay will contain full bibliographical descriptions of the essays discussed, in the alphabetical order of authors. The take-home essay will be discussed in a peer workshop before it is submitted. The writing workshop is fundamental to the course. Students who do not participate in it, because they are absent without good cause or do not have a fully drafted version of their paper, will lose 5 points on the grade of the paper once it is handed in. You must give me and your fellow students copies in the class preceding the project-session week. For due date see "Schedule" below. The essay will be graded for substance, structure, scholarship, and style.
FINAL TEST—The final test will be cumulative, a combination of various kinds of identification questions.
N.B.
1. Documentation, format—When you consult or quote a source, document it according to the usual academic principles. In all matters of form, use the MLA format. If you have questions about how to do so, ask me, or ask a librarian for the 4th or 5th edition of the MLA Handbook.
2. Editing—Take pride in your work, edit it carefully, root out mechanical errors. Expect your out-of-class paper and final exam essay to lose one point per five errors.
3. Font, margins—Out-of-class papers must be typed in an ordinary font. Those with abnormally wide margins or typeface, will be returned unmarked, and must be resubmitted as directed.
4. Late paper policy—No late paper policy. The presentation and essay deadlines are not negotiable.
5. Academic misconduct—Plagiarism will not be tolerated. You can be assigned a grade of F for it. The Institute of English and American Studies expects its students to adhere to the university’s code of student conduct, especially as it pertains to academic misconduct.
The following statement must be typed on the title page of your essay and signed in
hand: “This paper has been prepared in full awareness of the international norms of
academic conduct.”
Grading
Participation in discussion (inclusive of occasional quizzes—unannounced, and evaluated on an S/F basis, F meaning a loss of one point in each case—designed to check if you have actually read the day’s reading) will count 10%,
position papers: 20%,
presentation 10%,
in-class essay 10%,
take-home essay 30%,
final test 20%.
A/5=91-100; B/4=81-90; C/3=71-80; D/2=61-70; F/1 is 60% or below.
N.B.
1. Course requirements—The out-of-class essay and the final test are course requirements in that without satisfying these, you cannot pass the course.
2. Incompletes—Incomplete grades will be possible only if you must miss classes or the final test because of verified illness or for scheduled activities of official university student organizations—if (this applies to the latter case) I am notified in advance of your absence.
3. Absence policy—Grades can be lowered for more than three unexcused absences. If circumstances exist that cause you to be absent more than twice in the semester, make an appointment to speak to me about your progress in the course. However, more than three unexcused absences will automatically fail the course. It is possible to fail the course by absences alone.
4. Tardy policy—Tardiness and early departures are not allowable. They are offensive to your fellow students and to the instructor because they disrupt class work. If you have a compelling reason for arriving late or leaving early, speak with me about the problem. If you regularly cut the beginning and/or the end of class sessions, it can add up to unexcused full-class-time absences.
5. Borderline grades—If your grade is borderline, it depends on attendance and the general pattern of your work (performance improvements) if you can get a break.
6. Discussing grades—If you have questions about how I evaluated your work, please stop by to see me. It is my policy to discuss grades in person only, and not over the telephone.
7. Disabilities policy—Students who need course adaptations or accommodations because of certified disability or who have emergency medical information to share, should speak to me after the first class meeting.
S C H E D U L E
Month / Day / AssignmentsFebruary / 7 / Orientation
14 /
I. CRITICS OF CULTURE, NEW HUMANISM
H. L. Mencken’s “The American Novel,” Irving Babbitt’s “The Critic and American Life”; PP George Santayana’s “The Genteel Tradition,” Van Wyck Brooks’s “On Creating a Usable Past”21
(sign-up
dead-
line
for
pres.) /
II. THE NEW CRITICISM
John Crow Ransom’s “Criticism, Inc.,” Cleanth Brooks’s “The Formalist Critics,” William K. Wimsatt, Jr. and Monroe C. Beardsley’s “The Intentional Fallacy” and “The Affective Fallacy”; PP Brooks’s “From The Well Wrought Urn,” Allen Tate’s “Tension in Poetry,” William Empson’s “Ambiguity of the Fourth Type”28 / III. THE NEW YORK INTELLECTUALS, MARXISM
Philip Rahv’s “The Cult of Experience in American Writing,” Edmund Wilson’s “Marxism and Literature,” Fredric Jameson’s “From The Political Unconscious”; PP Mike Gold’s “Proletarian Realism,” Irving Howe’s “History and the Novel,” Jameson’s “Postmodernism and Consumer Society”
Month / Day / Assignments
March / 7 / IV. THE CHICAGO ARISTOTELIANS
PP R. S. Crane’s “History versus Criticism in the Study of Literature”
V. SPEECH ACT THEORY
J. R. Searle’s “What Is A Speech Act?”
VI. STRUCTURALISM, MYTH CRITICISM
Northrop Frye’s “The Archetypes of Literature,” Michael Riffatere’s “The Irrelevance of Grammar”; PP Kenneth Burke’s “Kinds of Criticism”
VII. OBJECTIVE INTERPRETATION (HERMENEUTICS)
E. D. Hirsch’s “Objective Interpretation”; PP from Susan Sontag’s Against Interpretation
J J J J J J J
Start conferences as needed
21 /
VIII. NEOPRAGMATISM
Barbara Herrnstein Smith’s “From Contingencies of Value,” Richard Rorty’s “The Contingency of Language,” “The Contingency of Selfhood”; PP “The Contingency of a Liberal Community”IX. CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
From Clifford Geertz’s The Interpretation of Cultures
In-class essay
Month / Day / Assignments
April / 4 / X. READER RESPONSE CRITICISM
Jane P. Tompkins’s “The Reader in History,” Norman N. Holland’s “Unity Identity Text Self”; PP Stanley E. Fish’s “Interpreting the Variorum,” David Bleich’s “Epistemological Assumptions in the Study of Response”
XI. PSYCHOANALYSIS
Harold Bloom’s “From The Anxiety of Influence”
11 / XII. POSTSTRUCTURALISM: THE YALE SCHOOL
Paul de Man’s “Semiology and Rhetoric,” J. Hillis Miller’s “The critic as host,” Barbara Johnson’s “From ‘Melville’s First: The Execution of Billy Budd’”
18 /
XIII. FEMINIST THEORY, BODY STUDIES
Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s “From The Mad Woman in the Attic,” Jane Tompkins’s “Me and My Shadow,” Susan Bordo’s “From Unbearable Weight”; PP Adrienne Rich’s “From Of Woman Born,” Annette Kolodny’s “Dancing through the Minefield”May / 2 / XIV. GENDER THEORY
Judith Butler’s “From Gender Trouble,” Adrienne Rich’s “From ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence’”;
PP Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s “From ‘Between Men,’” “From ‘Epistemology of the Closet,’” Bonnie Zimmerman’s “What Has Never Been”
Month / Day / Assignments
May / 9 / Writing workshop
XV. POSTCOLONIAL THEORY
Edward Said’s “From Orientalism,” Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s “From A Critique of Postcolonial Reason,” Homi K. Bhabha’s “The Commitment to Theory”
16 / XVI. THEORIES OF RACE AND ETHNICITY 1
W. E. B. Du Bois’s “From The Souls of Black Folk,” Alain Locke’s “The New Negro,” Langston Hughes’s “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” Zora Neale Hurston’s “Characteristics of Negro Expression,” “What White Publishers Won’t Print,” Houston A. Baker’s “From Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature,” Henry Louis Gates Jr’s “Talking Black”
Final test / Out-of-class essays due
Position papers due
XVII.THEORIES OF RACE AND ETHNICITY 2
Barbara Smith’s “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism,” bell hooks’s “Postmodern Blackness,” Gerald Vizenor’s “From ‘Manifest Manners,’” Gloria Anzaldúa’s “From Borderlands/La Frontera”; PP Paula Gunn Allen’s “Kochinnenako in Academe,” Barbara Christian’s “The Race for Theory
XVIII. NEW HISTORICISM
Hayden White’s “The Historical Text as Literary Artifact,” Stephen Greenblatt’s “Introduction to The Power of Forms in the English Renaissance”
XIX. A CONFLICTUAL CODA
Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaels’s “Against Theory,” Gerald Graff’s “Taking Cover in Coverage”
B O N U S
(also recommended for presentations) / XX. DISABILITY THEORY
Lennard J. Davis’s “From Enforcing Normalcy”
XXI. TECHNOSCIENCE: CYBORGS
Donna Haraway’s “A Manifesto for Cyborgs”
XXII. HYPERTEXT THEORY
Stuart Moulthrop’s “You Say You Want a Revolution?”
Texts
All in course packet
(two master copies available in IEAS Library for personal duplications of class material)
Sources - full titles of all items scheduled above, with bibliographical details (for student
essay citation purposes)
Allen, Paula Gunn. “Kochinnenako in Academe: Three Approaches to Interpreting a Keres
Indian Tale.” Leitch 2106-26.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. “From Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza.” Leitch 2208-23.
Babbitt, Irving. “The Critic and American Life.” Hutner 217-26.
Baker, Houston A. “From Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular
Theory.” (Introduction) Leitch 2223-40.
Bhabha, Homi K. “The Commitment to Theory.” Leitch 2377-97.
Bleich, David. “Epistemological Assumptions in the Study of Response.” Tompkins, Reader-
Response 134-63.
Bordo, Susan. “From Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body.” Leitch
2360-76.
Brooks, Cleanth. “From The Well Wrought Urn: The Heresy of Paraphrase.” Leitch 1350-65.
---. “The Formalist Critic.” Leitch 1366-71.
Brooks, Van Wyck. “On Creating a Usable Past.” Hutner 213-16.
Burke, Kenneth. “Kinds of Criticism.” Leitch 1269-78.
Butler, Judith. “From Gender Trouble.” (From preface, from Chapter 3.) Leitch 2485-2501.
Christian, Barbara. “The Race for Theory.” Leitch 2255-66.
Crane, R. S. “History versus Criticism in the Study of Literature.”
Davis, Lennard J. “From Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body.” Leitch
2398-2421.
de Man, Paul. “Semiology and Rhetoric.” Leitch 1509-26.
---. “The Return to Philology.” “Semiology” 1527-47.