Week 1: Introduction
Tuesday, August 28: What is Theory? Why Theory?
M.H. Abrams "Introduction," The Mirror and the Lamp.

Week 2: New Criticism
Tues. Sept. 4: M.H. Abrams "Introduction," The Mirror and the Lamp
Cleanth Brooks, "The Language of Paradox," Well-Wrought Urn, Ch. 1.

Week 3: The Structuralist Moment
Tues., Sept. 11: Roland Barthes, "Myth Today"

Week 4: Tues. Sept. 21: NO CLASS (Rosh Hashanah)

Week 5: The Structuralist Moment
Tues., Sept. 25: Roland Barthes, "The Death of the Author"
Michel Foucault, "What is an Author?"

Week 6: The Structuralist Moment
Tues., Oct. 2: Roland Barthes, "From Work to Text"
Jacques Derrida, "Structure, Sign and Play" in Writing and Difference

FIRST WRITING ASSIGNMENT DUE

Week 7: Poststructuralism
Tues., Oct. 9: J.L. Austin, "Performative Utterances."
Jacques Derrida, "Signature Event Context"

Week 8: Poststructuralism
Tues. Oct. 16: Paul de Man, "Semiology and Rhetoric" in Textual Strategies.
Paul de Man, "Excuses" in Allegories of Reading

Week 9: Marxist Criticism
Tues., Oct. 23: Raymond Williams, "Basic Concepts" in Marxism and Literature
FILM: Blow Up

Week 10: Marxist Criticism
Tues. Oct.30: Fredric Jameson, "The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism"
Edward Soja, "History: geography: modernity" in During (ed.), The Cultural Studies Reader

SECOND WRITING ASSIGNMENT DUE

II. Critical Diaspora: Disseminations, Reflections and Refractions

And these are the days when we look for something other --- U2

Week 11: Feminist Criticism
Tues., Nov. 6: Teresa de Lauretis, "Upping the anti [sic] in feminist theory" in S. During (ed.), Cultural Studies

Week 12: Feminist Criticism
Tues. Nov. 13: Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (excerpts).

Week 13: Cultural Studies
Tues., Nov. 20: Raymond Williams, "Cultural Theory" in Marxism and Literature
Stuart Hall, "Encoding/Decoding" in During (ed.), The Cultural Studies Reader

Week 14: Postcolonial Theory
Tues., Nov. 27: Edward Said, Orientalism (excerpts)
Dennis Porter, Aijaz Ahmad, on Orientalism

Week 15: Postcolonial Theory
Tues., Dec. 4: Spivak,"Can the Subaltern Speak?"
Homi Bhabha, "Of Mimicry and Man"
Stuart Hall, "When was 'the Post-Colonial'?: Thinking at the Limit"

FINAL WRITING ASSIGNMENT DUE IN CLASS

 

Recommended Reading:

Ashcroft, Tiffin and Griffiths, The Empire Writes Back

Belsey, Catherine. Critical Practice

Culler, Jonathan. On Deconstruction

During, Simon. Cultural Studies Reader

Harari, Josué, Textual Strategies

Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction

Williams, Patrick & Laura Chrisman, Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory

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