COL 301: Introduction to Literary Theory -- Syllabus

COL 301: Introduction to Critical Theory

Reg. #357464

Tues & Thurs.: 9-30 ~ 10.50 am

Professor: Shaun Irlam, Clemens 643

Office Hours: Thurs. 11-12

e-mail: irlam@buffalo.edu

http://wings.buffalo.edu/academic/department/AandL/col/courses/col301.html

SYLLABUS

I. Theory and the Critique of Humanism

These are the days when our work has come asunder -- U2

Week 1: Introduction

Tuesday, August 31: What is Theory? Why Theory?
Thursday, September 2: M.H. Abrams "Introduction," The Mirror and the Lamp. (Photocopy provided)

Week 2: New Criticism

Tues. Sept. 7: M.H. Abrams "Introduction," The Mirror and the Lamp

Thurs. Sept. 9: Cleanth Brooks, "The Language of Paradox," Well-Wrought Urn, Ch. 1. (Photocopy)

Week 3: The Structuralist Moment

Tues., Sept. 14: Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger, chs. 1&2.

Thurs., Sept. 16: Roland Barthes, "Myth Today" (Photocopy)

Week 4: The Structuralist Moment

Tues., Sept. 21: NO CLASS (Monday Schedule)

Thurs., Sept. 23: Roland Barthes, "Myth Today"; "The Death of the Author" (Photocopy)

Week 5: The Structuralist Moment

Tues., Sept. 28: Roland Barthes, "From Work to Text" (Photocopy)

Thurs., Sept. 30: Michel Foucault, "What is an Author?" (Photocopy)

Week 6: Poststructuralism

Tues., Oct. 5: Jacques Derrida, "Structure, Sign and Play" in Writing and Difference (Photocopy)

FIRST WRITING ASSIGNMENT DUE

FILM: Blow Up
Tues., Oct. 7: J.L. Austin, "Performative Utterances." (Photocopy)

Jacques Derrida, "Signature Event Context" (Photocopy)

Week 7: Poststructuralism

Tues. Oct. 12: Paul de Man, "Semiology and Rhetoric" in Textual Strategies (Photocopy provided).

Thurs., Oct. 14: de Man, "Semiology and Rhetoric"

Week 8: Feminist Criticism

Tues., Oct. 19: Teresa de Lauretis, "Upping the anti [sic] in feminist theory" in S. During (ed.), Cultural Studies (photocopy)

Thurs., Oct. 21: Michèle Wallace, "Negative images" in During (ed.)

Week 9: Feminist Criticism

Tues., Oct. 26: Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (excerpts)(Photocopy).

Thurs., Oct. 28: Butler, Gender Trouble

Week 10: Marxist Criticism

Tues., Nov. 2: Adorno & Horkheimer, "The Culture Industry" (Photocopy).

Thurs., Nov. 4: Fredric Jameson, "The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" (Photocopy)

II. Critical Diaspora: Disseminations, Reflections and Refractions

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

Week 11: Postcolonial Theory

Tues., Nov. 9: Edward Said, Orientalism (excerpts)

Thurs., Nov. 11: Dennis Porter, Aijaz Ahmad, on Orientalism

SECOND WRITING ASSIGNMENT DUE

Week 12: Postcolonial Theory

Tues., Nov. 16: Dispatches from the Postcolonialism wars:
Gyan Prakash, "Postcolonial Criticism and Indian Historiography," Social Text 31/32 (1992): 8-19
Arif Dirlik, The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism," Critical Inquiry 20 (Winter, 1994): 328-56

Thurs., Nov. 18: FILM: Sammy and Rosie Get Laid

Week 13:

Tues., Nov., 23: FILM: Sammy and Rosie Get Laid

Spivak, "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid" in Outside In the Teaching Machine

----. "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (photocopy)

Thurs., Nov. 25: THANKSGIVING, NO CLASS

Week 14: Cultural Studies

Tues., Nov. 30: Stuart Hall, "Encoding, Decoding," "Old and New identities"
Thurs., Dec. 2: Guillory, "Canonical and Non-Canonical"

Week 15

Tues., Dec. 7: Guillory, "Canonical and Non-Canonical"

FINAL WRITING ASSIGNMENT DUE

Thurs., Dec. 9: NO 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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