E492 Modern Critical Theory Syllabus, Fall 2015 – Alfred J. Drake's Academic Site

SYLLABUS FOR E492 MODERN CRITICAL THEORY
CSU FULLERTON, FALL 2015

COURSE INFORMATION. English 492, Course Code 21003, Section 01. M/W 2:30 – 3:45 p.m., University Hall (UH) 208. Instructor: Alfred J. Drake, Ph.D. Office hours: Tu/Th 9:00 – 9:55 a.m. in University Hall (UH) 329. Email: e492_at_ajdrake.com. Catalog: “Prerequisites: survey of English, American or world literature; an upper-division literature course; or equivalent. Poetry in English from the 1960s to the present. Units: (3).“ I will use +/- grading. The English Dept. may be reached at (657) 278-3253.

REQUIRED TEXTS AT TITAN BOOKSTORE

Leitch, Vincent B. and William E. Cain. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism 2nd edition. Norton, 2010. ISBN-13: 978-0393932928.

OPTIONAL RESOURCES

THEORYOCRACY.COM. My thoughts on the assigned authors.

COURSE RATIONALE AND ACTIVITIES

FOCUS AND OBJECTIVES. This course will cover a selection of texts by authors concerned with literary theory and with cultural theory and philosophy as they pertain to the study of literature. This is a course in modern theory, but because it is hard to engage with that field without understanding what prepared the way for it, the first several weeks will be dedicated to key predecessor texts. Any survey should help you build your knowledge of the periods, authors, and movements studied, but this one also aims to make it possible for you to have an ongoing conversation with some difficult but rewarding authors whose work should prove invaluable to you in your future study of literature.

ACTIVITIES. In class, there will be a mix of lectures, student presentations, whole-class and smaller-group discussion, occasional quizzes, an essay, and a final exam. I encourage questions and comments—class sessions improve when students take an active part. Outside class, do the assigned readings before the relevant discussion dates, complete your journal sets as outlined below, start planning and drafting your essay early, and work on your presentation drafts. In literary studies, the aim is to read and discuss actively and thereby to develop your own voice in response to the texts you read. Insightful interpretation and the ability to make compelling connections are central goals. The essay, discussions, presentations, and journal-keeping should combine to help you work towards these goals.

HOW YOUR PERFORMANCE WILL BE EVALUATED

COURSE POLICIES. Please review the course policies page early in the semester. Key points easily stated here: missing more than 20% of sessions may affect course grade; academic dishonesty may result in course failure. The four evaluative requirements outlined below must be substantially completed to pass the course. Since most assignments will be due by email, it is students‘ responsibility to contact me promptly if they do not get an email verifying receipt of materials.

PRESENTATIONS REQUIREMENT. At the beginning of the course, students will sign up for one to three (depending on class size) 5-7 minute in-class presentations on an author/text of their choosing (if possible). How to Proceed: I will provide presenters with a range of journal questions from which they need choose only one, and a few days after sign-up I will post a schedule on the Presentations page. Each session will feature one or more presentations. Required: Around five days in advance of your presentation, email me as full a draft as possible of what you intend to say in class. I will email you back with advice. If I suggest developing the remarks further, email me a revised version at least one day before your in-class presentation. I won‘t judge students on their rhetorical skills during the presentation, but rather on evidence of prior preparation and consultation as well as on the written draft. How to do well on this assignment: email me as required, and send a final written version; craft your responses to invite discussion; aim for spontaneity and a personal touch: use the question as a springboard rather than a prescription. (15-20% of course grade.).

JOURNALS REQUIREMENT. Responses to a choice of questions from the study questions page for each author. Four separate journal sets due by email as specified below in the session schedule. Electronic format required. I will not mark journal sets down unless they are late (maximum grade = B), incomplete, or so brief and derivative as to suggest evasion of intellectual labor: they should consist of honest responses to the assigned readings, not “yes-or-no“ style answers, quotation of the assigned texts without further comment, or pasted secondary material from Internet sources. How to do well on this assignment: read instructions; complete entries as you go through each text; send sets on time, making sure I verify receipt; respond with a thoughtful paragraph on each chosen question — use your own words and refer to the text‘s specific language. (30% of course grade.)

TERM PAPER REQUIREMENT. As a preliminary step, a one-paragraph description addressing the general topic and specific argument of the projected paper will be due by email on the date listed below in the syllabus. (Full rough drafts are also encouraged.) Not providing this description on time may affect the final draft grade. Please read the term paper instructions carefully since they contain the general prompt, possibly some suggested topics, and advance draft comments. I reserve the right to require proof of the final paper‘s authenticity, such as notes or an early draft. Final draft (5-7 pages) due as specified towards the bottom of the syllabus page. There is no need to consider this a research paper, though you are free to make it one if that‘s how you learn best. CSUF academic integrity policies apply. See UPS 300-021. How to do well on this assignment: send required advance paragraph on time and incorporate advice I send; allow time for revision; proofread and follow MLA formatting and style guidelines; avoid exhaustive coverage and stale generalities: instead, develop a specific, arguable set of claims, demonstrating their strength by showing how they enhance our understanding of specific language, structures, and themes; document your online/print sources; read instructions and take advantage of the writing guides available from the relevant menu on this site. (30% of course grade.)

FINAL EXAM REQUIREMENT. The exam will consist of substantive id passages (33% of exam), mix-and-match questions (match phrase or concept x to speaker/play y; 33% of exam), and key lecture points paired with substantive quotations from the assigned texts (33% of exam). Books and notes allowed for all sections, but no laptops. Students may not share books or notes during the exam. Exam date: see below. How to do well on this assignment: read the online prep. sheet; take good notes and ask questions/make comments; above all, enjoy the works rather than thinking of them only as test material. (20-25% of course grade.)

EMAILING ASSIGNMENTS. Email journals and term paper as attachments. Don’t send more than one document in the same email. Label subject lines appropriately: “492 Journal 1, Jane Rodgers“ etc. You can paste journal sets into a regular email and/or send them as an attachment. (Journal “sets“ include responses to questions about several authors; do not send entries on each author in a given set separately.) Contact me if you don‘t receive prompt email confirmation.

QUESTIONS FOR JOURNAL SETS AND PRESENTATIONS

SCHEDULE: WORKS DISCUSSED ON DATES INDICATED

WEEK 1

M. 08/24. Course Introduction.

W. 08/26. Plato. From The Republic, Books II, III, VII (45-63).

WEEK 2

M. 08/31. Plato. From The Republic, Book X (64-77) and Phaedrus (77-83).

W. 09/02. Aristotle. From Aristotle‘s Poetics (88-115).

WEEK 3

M. 09/07. Labor Day Holiday, No Classes.

W. 09/09. Immanuel Kant. From Critique of the Power of Judgment, “Introduction“ and First Book: “Analytic of the Beautiful“ (411-30). I will also spend a short time discussing Kant’s ideas about the sublime, but that section isn‘t assigned.

WEEK 4

M. 09/14. Georg W. F. Hegel. From Phenomenology of Spirit, “The Master-Slave Dialectic“ (541-47) and from Lectures on Fine Art (547-555).

W. 09/16. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. From Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (651-55); from The German Ideology (655-56); from The Communist Manifesto (657-60); from Grundrisse (661-62); from “Preface“ to A Contribution… (662-63); from Capital, Vol. 1, Ch. 1 “Commodities“ (663-71).

WEEK 5

M. 09/21. Friedrich Nietzsche. “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense“ (764-74).

W. 09/23. Sigmund Freud. From The Interpretation of Dreams, Chapters V-VI (814-24).

JOURNAL SET 1 DUE BY EMAIL MONDAY 09/28. (Plato through and including Freud. Please expect an email from me verifying receipt of this and subsequent journal sets.)

WEEK 6

M. 09/28. Ferdinand de Saussure. From Course in General Linguistics (850-66).

W. 09/30. T.S. Eliot and Cleanth Brooks. Eliot‘s “Tradition and the Individual Talent“ (955-61) and, from Brooks‘ The Well Wrought Urn,: “The Heresy of Paraphrase“ (1217-29).

WEEK 7

M. 10/05. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. From Dialectic of Enlightenment (1110-27).

W. 10/07. Walter Benjamin. “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility“ (1051-71).

WEEK 8

M. 10/12. W.E.B. DuBois and Langston Hughes. DuBois‘ “Criteria of Negro Art“ (870-77) and Hughes‘ “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain“ (1192-96).

W. 10/14. Frantz Fanon and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. From Fanon‘s The Wretched of the Earth: “On National Culture“ (1440-46). Gates‘ “Talking Black: Critical Signs of the Times“ (2430-38).

JOURNAL SET 2 DUE BY EMAIL MONDAY 10/19. (De Saussure through Henry Louis Gates Jr.)

WEEK 9

M. 10/19. Simone de Beauvoir. From The Second Sex (1265-73).

W. 10/21. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar. From The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination: from Chapter 2: “Infection in the Sentence …” (1926-37).

WEEK 10

M. 10/26. Roland Barthes. From Mythologies: “Photography and Electoral Appeal“ (1320-21). Read also “The Death of the Author“ (1322-26) and “From Work to Text“ (1326-31).

W. 10/28. Michel Foucault. “What is an Author?“ (1475-90). The following is not assigned, but read if your time permits: from Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison “The Carceral“ (1490-1502).

WEEK 11

M. 11/02. Claude Lévi-Strauss. From Tristes Tropiques (1273-86).

W. 11/04. Jacques Derrida. From Specters of Marx (1734-43).

WEEK 12

M. 11/09. Pierre Bourdieu. From Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste: “Introduction“ (1664-70) and from Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field: Part I, from Chapter 2 and Part III, from Chapter 1 (1664-80).

W. 11/11. Veterans Day Holiday, No Classes.

JOURNAL SET 3 DUE BY EMAIL FRIDAY 11/20. (Simone de Beauvoir through Pierre Bourdieu.)

PARAGRAPH ON TOPIC AND ARGUMENT FOR PAPER DUE BY EMAIL FRIDAY 11/20.

WEEK 13

M. 11/16. Li Zehou. From Four Essays on Aesthetics: Toward a Global View: Chapter 8. “The Stratification of Form and Primitive Sedimentation“ (1748-60).

W. 11/18. Bruno Latour. “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern“ (2282-2302).

WEEK 14

M. 11/23. Fall Recess, No Classes.

W. 11/25. Fall Recess, No Classes.

WEEK 15

M. 11/30. J. L. Austin and Judith Butler. Austin‘s “Performative Utterances“ (1289-1301). From Butler‘s Gender Trouble: from “Preface“ and Chapter 3: “Subversive Bodily Acts“ (2540-53).

W. 12/02. Paul Gilroy. From The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (2556-75).

WEEK 16

M. 12/07. Ross, Andrew. From “The Mental Labor Problem“ (2578-97).

W. 12/09. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. From Empire, Part 2, Section 4: “Symptoms of Passage“ (2621-35).

JOURNAL SET 4 DUE BY EMAIL EXAM DAY. (Zehou Li through Hardt & Negri.)

FINALS WEEK

Final Exam Date Wed. Dec 16, 2:30 – 4:20 p.m. Due by email by Wednesday, Dec 23: Term Paper. (I must turn in grades by Dec. 28, 2015.) For your other courses, check CSUF‘s Final Exam Schedule.

SYLLABUS FOR E492 MODERN CRITICAL THEORYCSU FULLERTON, FALL 2015