Recommended text:
David Macey, The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory
Week 2
Monday: discussion of syllabus, course introduction: what is theory?
Wednesday: "Introduction to Theory and Criticism" in Norton, pp. 1-28; Kenneth Burke, "Kinds of Criticism," in Norton, pp. 1272-78
Week 3
Monday: Ferdinand de Saussure, excerpts from Course in General Linguistics, in Norton, pp. 960-77; Roman Jackobson, "Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances," in Norton, pp. 1265-69; Cleanth Brooks, "The Formalist Critics," in Norton, pp. 1366-72
Wednesday: To the Lighthouse
Week 4
Monday: To the Lighthouse; paper topics distributed and posted on Blackboard
Wednesday: To the Lighthouse
Week 5
Monday: Virginia Woolf, excerpts from A Room of One's Own, in Norton, pp. 1021-29; Sandra M. Gilbert & Susan Gubar, extract from The Madwoman in the Attic, in Norton, pp. 2023-35; Helene Cixous, "The Laugh of the Medusa," in Norton, pp. 2039-56
Tuesday: first paper due
Wednesday: Adrienne Rich, selections from "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," in Norton, pp. 1762-80; Judith Butler, selections from Gender Trouble, in Norton, pp. 2488-2501
Week 6
Monday: To the Lighthouse revisited
Wednesday: To the Lighthouse: linking formalism, structuralism, gender, sex; paper topics distributed and posted on Blackboard
Week 7
Monday: Sigmund Freud, selections from The Interpretation of Dreams; "The 'Uncanny,' " in Norton, pp. 919-56
Wednesday: Jacques Lacan: "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience"; extract from "The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious"; "The Signification of the Phallus," in Norton, pp. 1285-1310
Week 8
Monday: The Turn of the Screw
Wednesday: James and psychoanalysis: Shoshana Felman, "Henry James: Madness and the Risks of Practice" (in Norton critical edition); second paper due
Week 9
Monday: James after psychoanalysis: Paul B. Armstrong, "History and Epistemology: The Example of The Turn of the Screw"; T.J. Lustig, "Henry James and the Ghostly" (both in the Norton criticial edition)
Wednesday: Plato, selection from Phaedrus, in Norton, pp. 81-85; Jacques Derrida, selection from "Plato's Pharmacy," in Norton, pp. 1830-78
Week 10
Monday: Homi K. Bhabha, "The Commitment to Theory," in Norton, pp. 2379-97; paper topics distributed and posted on Blackboard
Wednesday: Edward Said, selection from Orientalism, in Norton, pp. 1986-2012; Michel Foucault, excerpt from "Truth and Power," in Norton, pp. 1667-70
Week 11
Monday: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., "Talking Black: Critical Signs of the Times," in Norton, pp. 2424-32; Chinua Achebe, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness," in Norton, pp. 1783-94
Tuesday: third paper due
Wednesday: God's Bits of Wood, pp. 1-64 (Bamoko/Ad'jibid'ji to Dakar/Houdia M'baye)
Week 12
Monday: God's Bits of Wood, pp. 65-154 (Dakar/Ramatoulaye to Thiès/Doudou)
Wednesday: God's Bits of Wood, pp. 155-204 (Thiès/The Apprentices from Thiès to Dakar/The March of the Women)
Week 13
Monday: God's Bits of Wood, pp. 205-248 (Dakar/The Meeting to Thiès/Epilogue); paper topics distributed and posted on Blackboard
Wednesday: Walter Benjamin, extract from "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," in Norton, pp. 1167-86
Week 14
Thanksgiving break
Week 15
Monday: in-class screening, Dziga Vertov, Man with a Movie Camera (1929; 80 minutes)
Tuesday: final paper due
Wednesday: Benjamin and Vertov
Week 16
Monday: Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, excerpt from "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception," in Norton, pp. 1223-1240
Tuesday: screening, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Guys and Dolls (1955)
Wednesday: Horkheimer & Adorno and Mankiewicz; final exam distributed
The final is due no later than 5 p.m. Monday, December 15
How you will be graded:
