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September -- October -- November -- December
Instructors
Policies
There is no exam for this class, but two papers or projects are due. The
first, of roughly five to seven pages, is due on Thursday, 10 October;
the second, of roughly twelve pages, is due on Tuesday, 3 December. Some
notes on the projects:
- They need not be papers in the traditional sense, though they must be
extended analytical projects of some sort. Since the class explores
alternative forms of textuality, an electronic project of some kind may be
substituted for either project. We strongly recommend, though,
that you talk with us about your project before you begin it.
- The final project can be an extension of the first. Moving from a
five-page paper to a twelve-page paper, though, is not simply a matter of
stuffing in a sentence here and there. (It's even less a matter of using
bigger fonts.) An extended project should show a considerable advance in
sophistication from its predecessor.
Each student is also responsible for one brief presentation on the day's
readings, and one response to a presentation; the classes will be divided
up on Thursday, 12 September.
In a seminar that depends on discussion, class participation is of
paramount importance, and will factor heavily in your final grade. This
includes not only your more formal presentations and responses, but also
regular contribution to the discussion, both in class and on the
listserv.
Attendance and promptness will be enforced not only by the class
participation requirement, but by regular short quizzes, which we might
spring on you at any time during the semester. They will be unannounced,
will begin exactly at 3:00, and cannot be made up if missed.
Schedule of Class Meetings
Thursday, 5 September
Introduction: Conducting the class, grading and attendance
policies, &c.
Tuesday, 10 September
Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction, pp. 1-90
(Introduction, chapters 1 and 2).
Thursday, 12 September
Eagleton, pp. 91-217 (chapters 3, 4, and 5, Conclusion).
Tuesday, 17 September
From Hazard Adams, Critical Theory Since Plato: W. K.
Wimsatt & Monroe C. Beardsley, "The Intentional Fallacy," pp.
1015-21, and "The Affective Fallacy," pp. 1022-31.
Presenter: Chris Stadler.
Thursday, 19 September
From Hazard Adams, Critical Theory Since Plato: E. D.
Hirsch, "Objective Interpretation," pp. 1177-94; George Poulet,
"Phenomenology of Reading," pp. 1213-22.
Section Two: Signs, Symbols,
Structuralism
Tuesday, 24 September
From Hazard Adams, Critical Theory Since 1965: Claude
Lévi-Straiss, from The Raw and the Cooked;
Ferdinand de Saussure, from Course in General Linguistics,
pp. 646-57.
Thursday, 26 September
From Adams, Critical Theory Since 1965: Jacques Derrida,
"Structure, Sign and Play," pp. 83-93; from Of
Grammatology, pp. 94-119.
Presenter: Luke Szyrmer.
Tuesday, 1 October
Barthes, from Image, Music, Text: "The Photographic Message,"
"Rhetoric of the Image," and "The Third Meaning."
Thursday, 3 October
Barthes, Camera Lucida.
Presenter: Alex Orlovsky; Respondent: Anthony Pryor.
Tuesday, 8 October
Berger, Ways of Seeing, chapters 1 and 3; Walter Benjamin, "
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."
Presenter: Amy Lipman;
Respondent: Alex
Edelman.
Thursday, 10 October
From de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life: "General
Introduction," "Walking in the City."
Presenter: Steven Morgan
Friedman; Respondent: David Shapiro.
First Paper or Project Due.
Section Four: Cyborgs/Reading/the Body
Tuesday, 15 October
No class: Fall break.
Thursday, 17 October
Donna Haraway, "The Cyborg Manifesto."
Presenter: Kathy Bunt; Respondent: Steven Morgan Friedman.
Tuesday, 22 October
Luce Irigaray, "The Sex That is Not One"; Sigmund Freud, "Female
Sexuality."
Thursday, 24 October
Baudrillard, "The Ecstasy of Communication"; Arthur and Marylouise Kroker,
"Theses on the Disappearing Body in the Hyper-Modern Condition."
Presenter: Case
Torstenson; Respondent: Alex Orlovsky.
Section Five: Authorship & Readership
Tuesday, 29 October
Foucault, "The Author Function"; Barthes, "The Death of the
Author."
Presenter: Dan Orr;
Respondent: Luke Szyrmer.
Thursday, 31 October
Wolfgang Iser, "The Reading Process: A Phenomenological
Approach"; Stanley Fish, "Literature in the Reader: Affective
Stylistics."
Tony Bennett, "Texts, Readers, Reading Formations"; Chartier,
"Communities of Readers," from The Order of Books, pp.
1-23.
Thursday, 7 November
Jerome McGann, "The Socialization of Texts" and "The Textual
Condition," from The Textual Condition, pp. 69-98.
Presenter: Alex
Edelman; Respondent: Amy
Lipman.
Section Six: Intertext &
Hypertext
Tuesday, 12 November
Kristeva, "Word, Dialogue, and Novel," from Desire in
Language, pp. 64-91; Roland Barthes, "From Work to Text,"
from Image, Music, Text.
Presenter: Anthony Pryor.
Thursday, 14 November
George Landow, Hypertext, chapters 1 and 3.
Presenter: David Shapiro;
Respondent: Case
Torstenson.
Section Seven: Technologies of the
Word
Tuesday, 19 November
Stanley Fish, "Interpreting the Variorum"; Stuart Curran,
Frankenstein: The Pennsylvania Electronic Edition.
Thursday, 21 November
Martha Woodmansee, "The Genius and the Copyright:
Economic and Legal Conditions of the Emergence of the 'Author,'"
Eighteenth-Century Studies, 17 (1984), 425-48.
Respondent: Dan Orr.
Tuesday, 26 November
Visit to Special Collections, sixth floor of Van Pelt Library.
Thursday, 28 November
No class: Thanksgiving break.
Lanham, The Electronic Word, Introduction and Chapter 1.
Final Paper or Project Due.
Thursday, 5 December
Conclusion.