Reading Assignment

Assignments Due

1/3

Introduction to the Graduate Program in English

Culler, “What Is Theory?” and “What Is Literature and Does It Matter?”

Eagleton, “The Rise of English” in Literary Theory: An Introduction (online)

1/10

Culler, “Language, Meaning, and Interpretation” (55-68)

In Richter: Saussure (841-851), Lévi-Strauss (859-868), Barthes (868-882), Derrida (914-926)

(download readings missing from 2nd edition: Saussure, Barthes)

In Cuddon: structuralism, langue and parole, semiotics, narratology, post-structuralism, deconstruction, différance, logocentrism, supplément

Optional: Richter, “Structuralism and Deconstruction” (819-837)

1/17

Shakespeare, Hamlet

In Wofford: “A Critical History of Hamlet” (181-207), “Deconstruction and Hamlet” (283-331)

In Cuddon: play, Renaissance, humanism, blank verse, tragedy, revenge tragedy, soliloquy, action, plot, anagnorisis, peripeteia, catharsis

Two-Page Close Reading Exercise Due

1/24

Culler, “Literature and Cultural Studies” (42-54)

In Richter: Althusser (1263-1272), Foucault (1357-1366), Bourdieu (1398-1403), Greenblatt (1442-1445)  

(download readings missing from 2nd edition: Althusser, Bourdieu)

In Wofford: “Marxist Criticism and Hamlet” (332-367), “The New Historicism and Hamlet” (368-402)

In Cuddon: Marxist criticism, new historicism, sub-text, hermaneutic of suspicion

Optional: Richter, “Marxist Criticism” (1198-1214), “New Historicism and Cultural Studies” (1320-1338)

1/31

Culler, “Performative Language” (94-107)

In Richter: Woolf (602-607), Armstrong (1418-1432), Kolodny (1550-1562), Foucault (1627-1637), Nussbaum (1719-1720)  

(download readings missing from 2nd edition: Nussbaum)

In Cuddon: feminist criticism, gynocriticism, écriture féminine, différance, logocentrism, phallocentric, phallogocentric

Optional: Richter, “Feminist Literary Criticism” (1502-1516)

2/7

Austen, Northanger Abbey

In Austen: “Letters” (213-217) and “Contexts” (218-240)

In Cuddon: narrator, plot, sentimental novel, bathos, sensibility, comedy, comedy of manners, gothic novel/fiction, free indirect style/discourse, viewpoint, narratology

Hamlet Paper Due  

2/14

Culler, “Narrative” (82-93)  

Hoeveler, "Vindicating Northanger Abbey: Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austen, and Gothic Feminism" (online)

In Austen: Gilbert and Gubar (277-293), Johnson (306-325)

Research Methodology

2/21

Culler, “Identity, Identification, and the Subject” (108-120)  

In Richter: Jameson and Ahmad (1829-1836)   

(download readings missing from 2nd edition: Jameson-Ahmad)

Annotated Bibliography Due  

2/28

Peer Review Training

3/7

Draft of Term Paper Due (bring two copies)  

3/14

No class meeting

Final Draft of Term Paper Due