Assignments

English 3900: Critical Approaches to Literature, Fall 2018

TR 2:00-3:15 p.m., Arts & Sciences 340A

Interpretation Survey

Spend a few moments writing all the questions you ask of every work of literature you read. We'll post your questions here, and throughout the semester we'll compare them to the questions the theorists we're reading would ask.

 

Here are the questions our class asks:

• Setting: When was the piece of literature written and what were the socioeconomic and political influences on it? What was happening around the time the work was written? How does the geographical, political, historical setting influence the meaning of the work?
• Author: What was the intention of the work? What is the author trying to get across? What was the author's motivation? What is the author's background?
• Audience: Who is the intended audience? Who is its audience? Did the work become popular or not? Did it go against popular belief?
• Genre: What is the work's genre, and how does the genre influence intepretation? How would this piece of literature be intepreted by someone other than me?
• Conflict: What is the main conflict? Are the conflicts easily resolved? How do the characters add to or help to solve the conflicts?
• Theme: What are the major themes? Are the themes prominent and recurring or passing? Is the message clear? Does it have a point? Does it need to have a point?
• Point of View: Why was the point of view chosen? Is the first-person narrator reliable?
• Character: Who are the characters, and what are they trying to accomplish? Is there an obvious protagonist and antagonist, or is it unclear? Are the characters static or dynamic, round or flat?
• Symbols: What are the symbols? Does this work contain archetypes? How do the archetypes relate to earlier works of literature?
• Self: Is there anything I missed? Do I relate to the characters? How does the work impact me?
• Literariness: What makes the story unique and different? If I don't get it, is it my fault or the author's? Why are some books hard to read at first? Why does it have to be so long?

Here are the questions the theorists we're reading would ask any work of literature:

• Formalist Criticisms: Liberal Humanism, New Criticism, and Russian Formalism
  • Overview: What single interpretation of the text best establishes its organic unity from? In other words, how do the text's formal elements, and the multiple meanings those elements produce, all work together to support the theme, or overall meaning, of the work? Remember, a great work will have a theme of universal human significance. (Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today 150)
  • John Crowe Ransom, "Criticism, Inc.": Without considering external factors like Marxist and New Humanist morality or reader emotion, what does the scientific, systematic business of criticism reveal about the work of literature?
  • Cleanth Brooks, "The Heresy of Paraphrase": Without paraphrasing the work, what is the essential and meaningful poetic/artistic structure of the literary text?
  • William K. Wimsatt, Jr. and Monroe C. Beardsley, "The Intentional Fallacy": Disregarding external, private evidence, what internal structure and public evidence points to the meaning of the work?
    • "The Affective Fallacy": Without considering the author's intention or the emotional effect of the work on the reader, what does the work say (as opposed to do)?
  • Boris Eichenbaum, from The Theory of the "Formal Method": How is the literary language distinguished from practical language? What literary meaning does the poetic sound and/or narrative plot create?
• Psychoanalytic Criticism
  • Overview: How do the operations of repression structure or inform the work? That is, what unconscious motives are operating in the main character(s); what core issues are thereby illustrated; and how do these core issues structure or inform the piece?
    • Are there any oedipal dynamics—or any other family dynamics—at work here? That is, is it possible to relate a character's patterns of adult behaviour to early experiences in the family as represented in the story? How do these patterns of behavior and family dynamics operate and what do they reveal?
    • How can characters' behavior, narrative events, and/or images be explained in terms of psychoanalytic concepts of any kind (for example, regression, crisis, projection, fear of or fascination with death, sexuality—which includes love and romance as well as sexual behavior—as a primary indicator of psychological identity, or the operations of ego-id-superego)?
    • In what ways can we view a literary work as analogous to a dream? That is, how might recurrent or striking dream symbols reveal the ways in which the narrator or speaker is projecting his or her unconscious desires, fears, wounds, or unresolved conflicts onto other characters, onto the setting, or onto the events portrayed?
    • What does the work suggest about the psychological being of its author? Psychoanalyzing an author in this [psychobiographical] manner is a difficult undertaking, and our analysis must be carefully derived by examining the author's entire corpus as well as letters, diaries, and any other biographical material available. Certainly, a single literary work can provide but a very incomplete picture.
    • What might a given interpretation of a literary work suggest about the psychological motives of the reader? Or what might a critical trend suggest about the psychological motives of a group of readers?
    • In what ways does the text seem to reveal characters' emotion investments in the Symbolic Order, the Imaginary Order, the Mirror Stage, or what Lacan calls objet petit a? Does any part of the text seem to represent Lacan's notion of the Real? (Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today 38-9)
  • Sigmund Freud, from The Interpretation of Dreams: What unconscious Oedipal guilt and castration anxiety might a character (like Hamlet) have? What unconscious fears and desires do the character's dreams symbolize?
    • from "The Uncanny": Does the work have an object that seems familiar yet alien? From that object, what repressed knowledge returns despite and because of the character's anxiety regarding unconscious fears or desires?
    • "Fetishism": Does a character disavow the reality of loss and the symbolics of castration by imbuing an object or idea with sexual potency?
  • Harold Bloom, from The Anxiety of Influence: How does the author unconsciously misread her literary rivals, i.e., predecessors in order to create her own original work?
  • Jacques Lacan, "The Mirror Stage": What mirror or image establishes and provides a character her sense of self? With whom or what does she identify?
    • "The Signification of the Phallus": How do characters feign possession of phallic power?
  • Julia Kristeva, from Revolution in Poetic Language: How do the underlying drives of the text and character break through and transform the conventional symbolic order of the work?
  • Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, from A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Does the book shatter linear unity? Does the work deterritorialize (unbind and unbound) traditional Freudian circuits of desire?
  • Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (Leitch 2081-95): Describe which character the audience is supposed to identify with. When looking through the eyes of this character, do women function as femme fatales, in other words, as desirable yet castrating sex objects?
  • Slavoj Žižek, "Courtly Love, or, Woman as Thing": Describe the psychological structure of the romantic relationship (the nature of love and/or desire) in the literary work. Who holds the position of power? why? how? Who is the subject and who the object? why? how?
• Marxist Criticism
  • Overview: Does the work reinforce (intentionally or not) capitalist, imperialist, or classist values?
    • How might the work be seen as a critique of capitalism, imperialism, or classism?
    • Does the work in some ways support a Marxist agenda but in other ways (perhaps unintentionally) support a capitalist, imperialist, or classist agenda? In other words, is the work ideologically conflicted?
    • How does the literary work reflect (intentionally or not) the socioeconomic conditions of the time in which it was written and/or the time in which it is set, and what do those condtions reveal about the history of class struggle?
    • How might the work be seen as a critique of organized religion? That is, how does religion function in the text to keep a character or characters from realizing and resisting socioeconomic oppression? (Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today 68)
  • Leon Trotsky, from Literature and Revolution: In what ways is the literary text's imagination economical; in other words, how is the text imagined, influenced, and derived from social and economic conditions?
  • György (Georg) Lukács, from The Historical Novel (Leitch 905-21): What is the essence or totality of the work in terms of the dialectic between immediate subjective experience and objective reality of historical, economic living conditions?
  • Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility": Does the literary work have an authenticity or aura, a ritualistic or cultic quality surrounding its experience? Is the work exhibited to the masses (the cineplex of mass reproducibility and mass consumption) or the individual (museum of the sacred experience of art)?
  • Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, from "The Culture Industry": What does the literary work suggest, either intrinsically in terms of ideological theme, or extrinsically in terms of the relationship between the work and reality, about the relationship between pleasure and labor (or, more classically, from Marlowe, profit and delight)? What does the literary work do to the thinking individual, the viewer or reader (or, more classically, from Socrates, the contemplative life)?
  • Raymond Williams, "Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory": Inside the text, how does the ideological superstructure reflect the economic base ("the real social existence of man") of the society portrayed in the work of literature? Does the work portray one group in authority dominating over another ideologically and economically (hegemony)? Outside the text, what is the relationship of the literary work to the conditions of cultural and ideological practice in the world? Does the literary work express the dominant hegemony or an alternate practice?
  • Fredric Jameson, from The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act: How does the text, as a political act, reflect the historical events of the time period in which it was written? How does the text represent the class conflicts of the characters inside the text and the external social tensions that produced the text? What is the relationship between the form of the text and the ideology of the time period that produced it?
  • Louis Althusser, from "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses": What ideological state apparatuses (religious, educational, family, legal, political, trade-union, media, cultural) in or of the literary work cause an imaginary relationship of the characters or readers to their real conditions of existence?
• Feminist Criticism and Gender Studies
  • Overview: What does the work reveal about the operations (economically, politically, socially, or psychologically) of patriarchy? How are women portrayed? How do these portrayals relate to the gender issues of the period in which the novel was written or is set? In other words, does the work reinforce or undermine patriarchal ideology?
    • What does the work suggest about the ways in which race, class, and/or other cultural factors intersect with gender in producing women’s experience?
    • How is the work "gendered"? That is, how does it seem to deine femininity and masculinity? Does the characters' behavior always conform to their assigned genders? Does the work suggest that there are genders other than feminine and masculine? What seems to be the work's attitude toward the gender(s) it portrays?
    • What does the work imply about the possibilities of sisterhood as a mode of resisting patriarchy and/or about the ways in which women’s situations in the world—economic, political, social, or psychological—might be improved?
    • What does the history of the work’s reception by the public and by the critics tell us about the operations of patriarchy? Has the literary work been ignored or neglected in the past? Why? Or, if recognized in the past, is the work ignored or neglected now? Why?
    • What does the work suggest about women’s creativity?
    • What might an examination of the author’s style contribute to the ongoing efforts to delineate a speci!cally feminine form of writing (for example, écriture féminine)?
    • What role does the work play in terms of women’s literary history and literary tradition? (Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today 119-20)
  • Monique Wittig, "One Is Not Born a Woman": What are the material (socioeconomic, historical) conditions of women in the novel? How does the heterosexual class system affect the characters? Can the female characters live freely?
  • Barbara Smith, "Toward a Black Feminist Criticism": How do race, class, gender, and sexual orientation interact in the female characters' lives and conflicts? How are women protagonists portrayed, especially in regard to their relationships with each other?
  • Judith Butler, from Gender Trouble: How is a character's body (and therefore interiority) culturally inscribed? How does the character performatively fabricate and construct her (gender) identity?
• Lesbian Criticism, Gay Criticism, and Queer Theory
  • Overview: What are the politics (ideological agendas) of specific gay, lesbian, or queer works, and how are those politics revealed in, for example, the work’s thematic content or portrayals of its characters?
    • What are the poetics (literary devices and strategies) of a specific lesbian, gay, or queer work? What does the work contribute to the ongoing attempt to de!ne a uniquely lesbian, gay, or queer poetics, literary tradition, or canon?
    • What does the work contribute to our knowledge of queer, gay, or lesbian experience and history, including literary history?
    • How is queer, gay, or lesbian experience coded in texts that are apparently heterosexual? (This analysis is usually done for works by writers who lived at a time when openly queer, gay, or lesbian texts would have been considered unacceptable, or it is done in order to help reformulate the sexual orientation of a writer formerly presumed heterosexual.)
    • How might the works of heterosexual writers be reread to reveal an unspoken or unconscious lesbian, gay, or queer presence? That is, does the work have an unconscious lesbian, gay, or queer desire or conflict that it submerges (or that heterosexual readers have submerged)?
    • What does the work reveal about the operations (socially, politically, psychologically) of heterosexism? Is the work (consciously or unconsciously) homophobic? Does the work critique, celebrate, or blindly accept heterosexist values?
    • How does the literary text illustrate the problematics of sexuality and sexual “identity,” that is, the ways in which human sexuality does not fall neatly into the separate categories de!ned by the words homosexual and heterosexual? (Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today 341-2)
  • Bonnie Zimmerman, "What Has Never Been: An Overview of Lesbian Feminist Literary Criticism": Does the work have a lesbian author? Are the characters lesbian, either textually or subtextually? Does the work have a lesbian vision or aesthetic?
  • Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, from Between Men: English Literature and Homosocial Desire and from Epistemology of the Closet: In what ways does the sexuality of the characters in the literary work challenge the heterosexual/homosexual binary in general and object-choice in particular? In what ways are the characters' sexuality distinct from their sex and gender? Where does the characters' sexuality fall on the continuum from intimacy to sociality?
  • Gayle Rubin, from "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality": How is character sexuality produced by the institutions, regulations, and culture represented within the literary work? What are the politics of sexuality and the ideology of sex in the literary work?
  • Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner, "Sex in Public": What does the literary work suggest about social norms regarding sexuality and intimacy? Is heteronormativity hegemonic, or are transgressive, queer sexualities on transformative display?
• Postcolonial Criticism
  • Overview: How does the literary text, explicitly or allegorically, represent various aspects of colonial oppression? Special attention is often given to those areas where political and cultural oppression overlap, as it does, for example, in the colonizers’ control of language, communication, and knowledge in colonized countries.
    • What does the text reveal about the problematics of postcolonial identity, including the relationship between personal and cultural identity and such issues as double consciousness and hybridity?
    • What does the text reveal about the politics and/or psychology of anticolonialist resistance? For example, what does the text suggest about the ideological, political, social, economic, or psychological forces that promote or inhibit resistance? How does the text suggest that resistance can be achieved and sustained by an individual or a group?
    • What does the text reveal about the operations of cultural difference—the ways in which race, religion, class, gender, sexual orientation, cultural beliefs, and customs combine to form individual identity—in shaping our perceptions of ourselves, others, and the world in which we live? Othering might be one area of analysis here.
    • How does the text respond to or comment on the characters, topics, or assumptions of a canonized (colonialist) work? Examine how the postcolonial text reshapes our previous interpretations of a canonical text.
    • Are there meaningful similarities among the literatures of different postcolonial populations? One might compare, for example, the literatures of native peoples from different countries whose land was invaded by colonizers, the literatures of white settler colonies in different countries, or the literatures of different populations in the African diaspora. Or one might compare literary works from all three of these categories in order to investigate, for example, if the experience of colonization creates some common elements of cultural identity that outweigh differences in race and nationality.
    • How does the text represent relationships between the characters it portrays—for example, culturally dominant characters, subalterns, and cultural outsiders—and the land these characters inhabit? Does the narrator's attitude toward the natural setting, or the attitude of any character toward the natural setting, change over time? What kinds of relationships between human beings and nature does the text seem to promote?
    • How does a literary text in the Western canon reinforce or undermine colonialist ideology through its representation of colonization and/or its inappropriate silence about colonized peoples? Does the text teach us anything about colonialist or anticolonialist ideology? (Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today 426-7)
  • Chinua Achebe, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness": How does the literary work portray a continent or race in general, especially a Western work representing Africa and Africans? Does the work create an image that others and challenges the humanity and equality of native peoples? Consider the psychology of the author and her society that engenders an imagination full of such stereotypes.
  • Frantz Fanon, from The Wretched of the Earth: (How) Does the literary work advocate for colonized people to fight for their freedom? If the work is postcolonial literature, what is its relationship with pre-colonial culture and colonial culture?
  • Edward Said, from "Orientalism": Does the literary work reflect Western cultural hegemony, in other words does it engender an ideology and create a system of stereotypical representations in which its own discursive position the dominates the knowledge created in and by the so-called inferior East?
  • Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, from A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: If the literary text contains subaltern characters, in what ways are they subjected to imperialist ideology? In what ways does communication between colonized or subaltern characters fail in the literary work?

In Class Activities

1. Practice Interpretation Exercise

To prepare for the collaborative interpretation exercise assignment, let's divide into groups and practice the exercises in Lois Tyson's "Using Concepts from New Critical Theory."

 

Here are your groups:

1. "Appreciating the Importance of Tradition: Interpreting 'Everyday Use'" (45-51): Robert Abbott and Celestial Beltman
2. "Recognizing the Presence of Death: Interpreting 'A Rose for Emily'" (51-7): Madi Brillhart and Ashley Donnelly
3. "Understanding the Power of Alienation: Interpreting 'The Battle Royal'" (57-63): Jalen Frasher and Aurora Perez
4. "Respecting the Importance of Nonconformity: Interpreting 'Don't Explain'" (63-9): Ben Stokes and Daelyn Stone
5. "Responding to the Challenge of the Unknown: Interpreting 'I started Early—Took my Dog'" (69-74): TBA

On your own outside of class, individual students will

1. read your assigned literary work,
2. read your assigned Tyson exercise, and
3. find textual evidence for a potential essay on the literary work using the Tyson exercise prompts.

As a group in class on Thursday, group members will

1. combine your textual evidence,
2. compose a thesis for a potential essay on the literary work using the Tyson exercise prompts,
3. create an outline for a potential essay, and
4. share their thesis and outline with the class.

Article Summary and Article Application

Written Summary and Application

The informal article summary compels you to practice determining the key ideas of a specific theorist's essay and the informal article application compels you to apply a specific theorist's ideas when interpreting a work of literature.

 

The article summary, which will summarize a particular theorist's essay, should

• be 3-4 pages long,
• be formatted in MLA style in Word format (I suggest using this template),
• summarize the article's argument for approaching literature (if there are multiple articles on the syllabus by a single author, summarize only one),
• quote and explain at least two significant passage(s),
• define key terms,
• and include questions that the theorist would ask of the work of literature

The article application, which will crtically read a work of literature by applying a particular theorist's ideas, should

• be 3-4 pages long,
• be formatted in MLA style in Word format (I suggest using this template),
• briefly summarize the theorist's essay and explicitly pose questions that the theorist would ask a work of literature (about 1 page)
• respond to those questions for a single work of literature we're reading as a class this semester (about 2-3 pages): Dickinson's "I started Early—Took my Dog," Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," Ellison's "The Battle Royal," Walker's "Everyday Use," or Gomez's "Don't Explain"

Informal Presentation

You will also be responsible for a brief, informal presentation. The article summary presentation should introduce the essay by defining key points and terms and broaching issues for class discussion (without simply reading your written summary) while the article application presentation should pose the theorist's questions and interpret the work in response to those questions (without simply reading your written response).

Due Dates

1. Your written assignment will be due in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Article Summary or Assignments > Article Application two days before we are scheduled to discuss an article. Failing to submit to GeorgiaVIEW means failure of the assignment, as you will not be allowed to present in class unless you already submitted to GeorgiaVIEW and I have had a chance to read your response.
2. Your brief, informal presentation will be due on the day we discuss the essay in class. This date is approximate for we will sometimes fall a day behind. Failing to present the article to the class without providing a valid absence excuse will result in a two letter grade penalty.
3. I will return your graded assignment to you in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Article Summary or Article Application approximately one week after we discuss the article in class. Due to GeorgiaVIEW limitations, I am unable to return graded assignments to you unless and until you submit them to the Assignment dropbox. Here's how to calculate your course grade.
4. For example, we are scheduled to discuss Kristeva on Tuesday, 9-11. Therefore, someone's article summary and someone else's article application will be due in GeorgiaVIEW on Sunday, 9-9. In class on Tuesday, 9-11, one student will informally present the main ideas of Kristeva's essay and another student will informally apply Kristeva's essay to a reading of a work of literature. I will return the graded article summary to her the following week in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Article Summary.

Sign Up

Sign up for two slots: one article summary (sum) and one article application (app) at least three weeks apart.

 

Written Due Date	Oral Due Date	Reading	Student
T, 9-4	R, 9-6	Lacan	sum Robert Abbott
			app
S, 9-9	T, 9-11	Kristeva	sum Aurora Perez
			app
		Deleuze and Guattari	sum
			app
T, 9-11	R, 9-13	Mulvey	sum Madi Brillhart
			app
		Žižek	sum Celestial Beltman
			app
T, 10-2	R, 10-4	Williams	sum
			app Aurora Perez
		Jameson	sum
			app
S, 10-14	T, 10-16	Althusser	sum
			app Ben Stokes
S, 10-21	T, 10-23	Wittig	sum
			app Celestial Beltman
		Smith	sum
			app
T, 10-30	R, 11-1	Sedgwick	sum Ben Stokes
			app Ashley Donnelly
		Rubin	sum Jalen Frasher
			app Madi Brillhart
T, 11-13	R, 11-15	Fanon	sum Ashley Donnelly
			app Robert Abbott
		Said	sum Jalen Frasher
			app

Interpretation Exercise

While the article summary compels you to practice determining the key ideas of a specific theorist's essay and the article application compels you to apply a specific theorist's ideas when interpreting a work of literature, both in an informal setting and by yourself, the interpretation exercise requires you to work with a partner to complete an interpretation exercise in Lois Tyson's Using Critical Theory and then 1) compose a formal essay that applies the general concepts of a critical approach in the interpretation of a work of literature, and 2) formally present your essay to the class. Your single, collaboratively written essay should be built from the interpretation exercise, guided by a thesis, and prove a theoretically informed interpretation of a work of literature using appropriate evidence. Your well-organized presentation should clearly convey how you are using concepts from the critical theory to interpret the work of literature, and each member should speak during the presentation.

Parameters

• Length: 4-5 pages, 7-10 minutes
• Format: MLA style in Word format (I suggest using this template)
  • This essay does not require a Works Cited page, unless it cites a source outside of the course syllabus.
• Due: The paper is due in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Interpretation Exercise on the presentation date.
• Group Policy: Each group member is responsible for staying connected with the group, attending meetings, actively participating in meetings, doing her delegated work, i.e., contributing her fair share to the project. In order to hold singular members accountable in a team project, each group member should individually compose and submit to GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Interpretation Exercise - Individual Evaluation a paragraph that assesses their own performance and their peer's service to the assignment. If it becomes apparent that a group member did not participate (skipped meetings, didn't complete her assigned work, etc.), that member will be assessed individually rather than receive the group grade.
• Grade: Your assignment will be assessed in terms of thesis, usage of the critical theory concepts, and presentation skills; your project will be graded approximately one week after submission in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Interpretation Exercise. Here's how to calculate your course grade.

Sign Up

Due Date	Exercise	Students
T, 9-18	Tyson, Psychoanalytic Theory: Dickinson, Ellison, Faulkner, Gomez, Walker	Aurora Perez
		Ben Stokes
R, 10-18	Tyson, Marxist Theory: Dickinson, Ellison, Faulkner, Gomez, Walker	Robert Abbott
		Ashley Donnelly
T, 10-25	Tyson, Feminist Theory: Dickinson, Ellison, Faulkner, Gomez, Walker
T, 11-6	Tyson, Lesbian, Gay, and Queer Theory: Dickinson, Ellison, Faulkner, Gomez, Walker	Jalen Frasher
T, 11-20	Tyson, Postcolonial Theory: Dickinson, Ellison, Faulkner, Gomez, Walker	Madi Brillhart
		Celestial Beltman

Group Presentation

In the formal presentation, two groups of three to four students will collaborate to teach three of the following seven critical approaches to the class:

• structuralism
• deconstruction
• cognitive criticism
• existentialism and phenomenology
• reader-response criticism
• African-American criticism
• ecocriticism

On Tuesday, November 13, students will form groups. By Thursday, November 15, groups will inform the professor of their first and second choice; groups will meet with the professor about the upcoming project in class on Tuesday, November 27.

 

One week before the presentation, the group should inform the class of what 1 overview article and 1 theoretical article it will teach as well as provide the professor with copies of the articles (if not in Tyson's Critical Theory Today and Leitch's The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism ).

 

During the 25-35 minute presentation followed by 10 minute question and answer session, the group should

• provide an overview of the method (based on an overview article like Tyson's)
• that compares and contrasts the method with at least 2-3 critical approaches previously studied, and also
• that defines both the theory of the method and describes the practice of the method
• see the professor if Tyson doesn't provide overviews of your method
• teach one or two theoretical articles by a specific theorists articles can be found in Leitch'sThe Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism
  • 3 member groups teach 1 theoretical article
  • 4 member groups teach 2 theoretical articles
  • see the professor if your method is not represented in the anthology.
• demonstrate the method with an interpretation of either one of the five texts in Tyson's Using Critical Theory (Dickinson, Ellison, Faulkner, Gomez, Walker).

Parameters

• Time: 25-35 minute presentation, 10 minute question and answer session
• Format: Use any audiovisuals you wish, like a Powerpoint, Prezi, or website
• Due: The presentation is due on the group's scheduled date. One group member should submit the presentation file (if applicable) to GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Group Presentation.
• Group Policy: Each group member is responsible for staying connected with the group, attending meetings, actively participating in meetings, doing her delegated work, i.e., contributing her fair share to the project. In order to hold singular members accountable in a team project, each group member should individually compose and submit to GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Group Presentation - Individual Evaluation a paragraph that assesses their own performance and their peer's service to the assignment. If it becomes apparent that a group member did not participate (skipped meetings, didn't complete her assigned work, etc.), that member will be assessed individually rather than receive the group grade.
• Grade: Your assignment will be assessed in terms of understanding and presentatio of the theoretical overview, primary theories, and critical reading. Retrieve your graded assignment in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Group Presentation approximately one week after you submit. Due to GeorgiaVIEW limitations, I cannot return your graded assignment unless and until you upload a file to the Dropbox. Here's how to calculate your course grade.

Sign Up

You will sign up for 2 groups of 3-4 members on Tuesday, November 13.

 

Date	Theory	Students
T, 12-4	Existentialism and Phenomenology	Robert Abbot
		Celestial Beltman
		Madi Brillhart
		Ashley Donnelly
R, 12-6	African-American Criticism	Jalen Frasher
		Aurora Perez
		Ben Stokes

Exam 1

Exam 1 will cover formalism (New Criticism and Russian Formalism) and psychoanalysis and will be taken in class on Thursday, September 20. There will be two essay questions. In the first essay, you will be asked to compare and contrast the formalist and psychoanalytic methodologies. The second essay question will ask you to demonstrate and practice the formalist and psychoanalytical approaches to literature on your choice of one text from the following, the poem "Black Art" by Anne Sexton or the short story "How to Be an Other Woman" by Lorrie Moore. You may bring printouts of the literary works to the exam; but you may not use your textbooks.

 

Your theory essay will be graded on 1) your ability to balance a broad understanding of the general theory with a healthy amount of specific terms from particular theorists as well as on 2) your ability to assess similarities and differences between the two general theories.

 

Your application essay grade will be based on how you interpret the text; in other words, illustrate your understanding of the critical methodologies by making apparent the questions a New Critic and psychoanalytic critic ask of a text.

 

If I were to study for this exam, I would 1) create an outline of key terms and compose their definitions, 2) write practice essays comparing and contrasting the formalist and psychoanalytic approaches using those keys terms, and 3) write practice essays interpreting the one literary work from formalist and psychoanalytic perspectives using those key terms.

Exam 2

• Essay 1: Theory
• Select Marxism and either Feminsm and Gender Studies or Lesbian/Gay Criticism and Queer Theory. Then compare and contrast 1) how two generic theorists (a generic Marxist/historicist theorist and a generic theorist, either Feminist theorist or a Queer theorist) approach art and literature in terms of meaning and 2) how two specific theorists approach art and literature in terms of meaning. What is meaningful and what constitutes meaning inside or outside of a text? Use and define key terms that have significance and meaning for the general theory and key terms particular to a specific theorist.
• Note:Your selected option of Feminism and Gender Studies or Lesbian/Gay Criticism and Queer Theory must be consistent throughout individual essays and the entire exam. For instance, if you choose Feminism and Gender Studies, then you must discuss Feminist and Gender Studies theory in both essays and your specific theorists must be from the Feminist and Gender Studies unit.
• Your essay should cover
  1. a general overview of Marxist theory
  2. a specific understanding of a particular Marxist theorist (Marx and Engels, Trotsky, Lukács, Benjamin, Horkheimer and Adorno, Jameson, or Williams)
  3. a general understanding of either Feminism and Gender Studies or Lesbian/Gay Criticism and Queer Theory
  4. a specific understanding of either a particular Feminist theorist (Wittig, Smith, or Butler) or a particular Queer theorist (Zimmerman, Sedgwick, Rubin, or Berlant and Warner)
  5. a comparison and contrast of the two theories
• Essay 2: Interpretation
  • Choose either 1) Adrienne Rich's poem "The Burning of Paper instead of Children", 2) Richard Bruce Nugent's short story "Smoke, Lilies, and Jade", 3) Phoebe Waller-Bridge's television series Killing Eve (available on Amazon, Apple, and elsewhere) 4) or Luca Guadagnino's film Call Me by Your Name (available on Amazon, Apple, and elsewhere) and then write an essay that compares and contrasts a Marxist reading with either a Feminist and Gender Studies reading or a Lesbian/Gay Criticism and Queer Theory reading. 1) Discuss a specific Marxist theorist's method for analyzing literature and then interpret your selected work based on that approach. 2) Discuss either a specific Feminist or Queer theorist's method for analyzing literature and then interpret your selected work based on that approach. 3) Compare and contrast your two readings of the work of literature. How would the particular theorists (both of your choosing, but not repeating an author used in the first essay) interpret the work with their particular versions of the general method, and how might the readings be similar and different? Unlike a traditional literature essay exam which would only require you to elucidate the meaning of the work of literature, your answer in this exam should explicitly exemplify the methods that guide interpretation of meaning. In other words, your essay should illustrate the differing interpretive theories that underlie the practice of criticism.
  • Note: Do not discuss a particular theorist more than once on your exam. For example, if you analyze Benjamin in Essay 1, you cannot apply his theory in Essay 2 and vice versa.
  • Your essay should cover
    1. a specific reading of the work of literature by defining and applying a particular Marxist theorist's methodology (Marx and Engels, Trotsky, Lukács, Benjamin, Horkheimer and Adorno, Jameson, or Williams)
    2. a specific reading of the work of literature by defining and applying either a particular Feminist theorist's methodology (Wittig, Smith, or Butler) or a particular Queer theorist's methodology (Zimmerman, Sedgwick, Rubin, or Berlant and Warner)
    3. a comparison and contrast of the two readings
• Due: GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Exam 2 on Thursday, November 8
• Length: 5-7 pages per essay, 10-14 pages total, submitted in a single file
• Format: MLA style in Word format (I suggest using this template)
• Grade: You will be assessed on your understanding of 1) the two methodologies, 2) the four specific theorists, 3) connections and distinctions among the methods and theorists, and 4) how to apply the methods and theorists. Your graded exam will be returned to GeorgiaView > Course Work > Dropbox > Exam 2 approximately one week after you submit it. Due to GeorgiaVIEW limitations, I cannot return your graded paper unless and until you upload it to the Dropbox. Here's how to calculate your course grade.

Exam 3

• Essay 1: Theory
  • Compare and contrast Postcolonialism and your choice of either of the group project theories (Existentialism or African-American Criticism). Be sure to address both the critical theory and the interpretive practice. Your essay should cover
    1. a general overview of Postcolonialism
    2. a specific understanding of a particular Postcolonial theorist
    3. a general understanding of the second theory
    4. a specific understanding of a particular theorist from the second theory
    5. a comparison and contrast of the two theories
• Essay 2: Interpretation
  • Select any work of literature (play, poetry, fiction, graphic novel, film, or television program; approved by your professor by Thursday, November 29) and read it through the lens of any two theorists in the course (articles marked theory, not articles marked overview, on the syllabus).
  • Your essay should provide
    1. a focused thesis that makes an overarching interpretive claim, controls your argument, and structures your paper
    2. textual evidence from the literary work
    3. literary analysis of textual evidence adhering to the critical approach of two particular theorists that we've read (not the general overviews by Tyson)
    4. sufficient explanation of the particular theorists so that the reader understands how and why you're applying them
• Due: GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Exam 3 on Thursday, December 13
  • If I do not receive or cannot open your paper, I will email you the day after your paper is due. If I do not receive or cannot open your paper within two days of its due date, you will fail the paper and the class.
• Length: 5-7 pages per essay, 10-14 pages total, submitted in a single file
• Format: MLA style in Word format (I suggest using this template)
• Grade: You will be assessed on your understanding of 1) the two methodologies, 2) the four specific theorists, 3) connections and distinctions among the methods and theorists, and 4) how to apply the methods and theorists.
  • You can access your final grade in the course via PAWS after December 19.
  • In order to read and assess all the exams and papers in my classes by the final grade deadline, I will not be giving feedback on final projects this semester. I am glad to put your exam grade in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Exam 3 if you ask me to do so on your paper. I am happy to provide exam feedback at the beginning of spring semester if you email me to set up a conference. Here's how to calculate your course grade.

Student	Work of Literature	Theorists
Robert Abbott	Hughes, "Let America Be America Again"	Fanon, Sartre
Celestial Beltman	Rowling, Harry Potter and the Death Hallows	Marx, Althusser
Madi Brillhart	The Haunting of Hill House	Freud, Mulvey
Ashley Donnelly	The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina	Sedgwick, Wittig
Jalen Frasher	Morisseau, Detroit '67	Hurston, Hughes
Aurora Perez	Rizal, El Filibusterismo	Fanon, Jameson
Ben Stokes	Heller, Catch-22	Lukács, Freud