ENGLISH 4030: CONTEMPORARY LITERARY CRITICISM

FALL 2005 [Sec. 001, #43104]                                                                                                                                  F. GRADY

MW 11:00-12:15                                                                                                                                                         455 LUCAS

201 LUCAS                                                                                                                                                                516-5592

OFFICE HOURS: M 1:00-3:00,                                                                                                                                  fgrady@umsl.edu

            W 1:00-2:30, and by appt.                

 

     A survey of the approaches to literary study that have flourished in the academy over the last century, including New Criticism, structuralism, semiotics, reception theory, marxism, feminism, deconstruction, psychoanalysis (or as the Bulletin description puts it, "psycho-sexual" criticism), gender criticism, new historicism, and other poststructuralist modes of address.  Attention will also be paid to contemporary institutional and professional issues.  Though much of the reading will be theoretical in nature, we will do our best to remain grounded via Bram Stoker's Dracula, a novel that turns out to be particularly open to--or susceptible to--a variety of critical tactics.

 

     Requirements: Class participation (based on perfect attendance; regular, vigorous, and open-minded contribution to discussion; quiz grades [if necessary]; written responses to weekly discussion questions--20%); two short (5-6pp.) essays (20% each); midterm and final exams (20% each). 

 

     Useful information, assignments, links, and a constantly-updated version of this syllabus can be found on mygateway.umsl.edu and on the course homepage, which can be reached from my home page (http://www.umsl.edu/~gradyf).

 

REQUIRED TEXTS:

M.H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms. Seventh edition. Harcourt Brace Jovanich College Publishers, 1993.

Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction. Second edition. University of Minnesota Press,1996.

David Lodge, Small World. Penguin, 1995 (1984).

Bram Stoker, Dracula.  Ed. Nina Auerbach and David J. Skal. Norton Critical Edition. Norton, 1997.

Vincent B. Leitch, ed., The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Norton, 2001 [hence NA].

 

There will also be a course reader on reserve in the library.

 

RECOMMENDED: Possession of or regular access to a style manual, either the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers or The Chicago Manual of Style, and a good dictionary.

 

TENTATIVE SYLLABUS:

 

M  AUG 22    Introduction: A Diversity of Opinion

W  AUG 24   The  State of the Profession I

                        Graff, “Taking Cover in Coverage,” NA 2056-67

                        Graff, "Disliking Books at an Early Age," xerox

 

 

M  AUG 29  State of the Profession II

                        Culler, Literary Theory 1-17, xerox

W  AUG 31 What is Literature?

                        Eagleton, Literary Theory 1-37

 

                        Dracula quiz—chapters 1-8

                       

 

M  SEP 5  LABOR DAY

W  SEP 7 Canons and Traditions

                        Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent," NA 1088-98

                        Eagleton, Literary Theory 37-46

                        Guillory, "Canon," xerox  233-49

 

                        Dracula quiz—chapters 9-17

 

M  SEP 12  Hey, who let this novel in here?

                        Stoker, Dracula

                                                                                                                                                                                   

                        Dracula quiz—chapters 18-27

W  SEP 14  Psychoanalytic Criticism I: Freud and Co.

                         Eagleton, Literary Theory 131-68        

                         Freud, from The Interpretation of Dreams, NA 913-29

                         Meltzer, "Unconscious" [reader]         

 

 

M  SEP 19  Psychoanalytic Criticism in Action

                        Bentley, “The Monster in the Bedroom: Sexual Symbolism in …Dracula” [reader]

                        Roth, "Suddenly Sexual Women in Bram Stoker's Dracula," in Dracula, 411-21

W  SEP 21  Some Feminisms

                        Woolf, from A Room of One's Own, NA 1017-1029

                        Simone de Beauvoir, from The Second Sex, NA 1403-14

                        Wittig, “One Is Not Born a Woman,” NA 2012-2021  

 

 

M  SEP 26  Some Feminisms, cont.

                        Gilbert and Gubar, from The Madwoman in the Attic, NA 2021-35

                        Schweickart, “Reading Ourselves: Toward a Feminist Theory of Reading” [reader]

                        Kolodny, "Dancing Through the Minefield…," NA 2143-2165

               

W  SEP 28  Beyond Feminism?

                        Sedgwick, from Between Men, NA 2432-38

                        Jehlen, "Gender" [reader]

                        Craft, "'Kiss Me with Those Red Lips': Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker's Dracula," in Dracula 444-59

                                    Supplements to Craft:  part 1   part 2   part 3

                       

F  SEP 30  ***FIRST ESSAY DUE DATE***

 

M  OCT 3  Marxist Criticism I: Class   

                        Williams, from Marxism and Literature, NA 1565-75

                        Moretti, "A Capital Dracula," in Dracula 431-44

                        Grady, "Vampire Culture" [reader]

W  OCT 5  Marxist Criticism II: Ideology and the Subject

                        Kavanagh, "Ideology" [reader]

                        Althusser, from Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, NA 1476-79, 1498-1509

 

 

M  OCT  10  Formalism I: The "New Criticism"

                        Brooks, "The Language of Paradox" [reader] and "The Heresy of Paraphrase,"  NA 1350-65

                         Wimsatt and Beardsley, "The Intentional Fallacy," NA 1371-87

W  OCT 12  MIDTERM

 

 

M  OCT 17  Against Formalism I: Reader-Response Criticism

                        Eagleton, Literary Theory 47-78

                        Fish, "Interpreting the Variorum," NA 2067-89

                        Fish, "Interpreting 'Interpreting the Variorum'" [reader]

W  OCT 19   Against Formalism II: Structuralism

                         Eagleton, Literary Theory 79-109

                         Saussure, from Course in General Linguistics,   NA 956-66

                         Frye, “The Archetypes of Literature,” NA 1442-57

 

 

M  OCT 24  Against Formalism III: Semiotics

                         Barthes, "The World of Wrestling," xerox, and NA 1457-64

                         Eco, “Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage,” xerox

W  OCT 26  Against Formalism IV: Deconstruction

                        Eagleton, Literary Theory 110-30

                        Graff, "Determinacy/Indeterminacy," xerox

                        DeMan, “Semiology and Rhetoric,” NA 1509-26

 

 

M  OCT 31  Deconstruction in Action

                        Belsey, “Constructing the Subject: Deconstructing the Text” [reader]

                        Riquelme, "Doubling and Repetition/Realism and Closure in Dracula" [reader]

W  NOV 2  Psychoanalysis after Deconstruction: Lacan   

                        Žižek, "Two Ways to Avoid the Real of Desire" [reader]

                        Foster, "The little children can be bitten": A Hunger for Dracula" [reader]

 

 

M  NOV 7  Marxism After Deconstruction, or Some Historicisms

                        [Eagleton, Literary Theory 169-89]

                        Greenblatt,  from The Power of Forms, NA 2250-54

                        Foucault, from Discipline and Punish, NA 1615-21, 1636-47

                        Schaffer, "'A Wilde Desire Took Me': The Homoerotic History of  Dracula," Dracula 470-82

                                    supplements to Schaffer essay: part 1  part 2  part 3  part 4  part 5

W  NOV 9  Feminism after Deconstruction

                        Butler, from Gender Trouble, NA 2485-2501

 

F NOV 11 ***SECOND ESSAY DUE DATE***

 

M  NOV 14  Postcolonialism

                        Said, from Orientalism, NA 1986-2002, 2010-12

                        Spivak, from A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, NA 2197-2208

W  NOV 16  Matters of Race

                        Appiah, "Race" [reader]

                        Arata, "The Occidental Tourist: Dracula and the Anxiety of  Reverse Colonization," in Dracula 462-70

 

M  NOV 21/W  NOV 23  THANKSGIVING BREAK

 

M  NOV 28  Some (Pop) Cultural Studies

                        Clover, "Her Body/Himself" [reader], and either                      

Radway, " "The Institutional Matrix of Romance" [reader]

                                                            or

                        Garber, from Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety [reader]

 

W  NOV 30  Surveying the Ruins

                        Eagleton, Literary Theory 169-208

                        Menand, "The Demise of Disciplinary Authority" [reader]

                        Brantlinger, “Who Killed Shakespeare” [reader]

                        Scholes, "The Humanities in a Posthumanist World" [reader]

 

                        Optional:

Bate, “The Crisis in English Studies” [reader]

                        DeMan, “The Return to Philology,” NA 1527-31

 

 

M  DEC 5     Theory as Romance

                         Lodge, Small World

W  DEC 7  Take a Deep Breath Day

                        ***THIRD ESSAY DUE DATE***

                                               

 

 

 M DEC 12  Final Exam

 

 

Students with disabilities who believe that they may need accommodations in this class are encouraged to contact the Disability Access Services Office in 144 Millennium Student Center at 516-6554 as soon as possible to ensure that such accommodations are arranged in a timely fashion.