ASSignments

English 4110/5110 Literary Criticism

TR 12:30-1:45PM, Arts & Sciences 353, Fall 2015

Film and Television Availability

This chart provides links to our class's required films that are available from Apple (digital purchase or rental), Amazon (digital purchase, rental, or streaming), Internet Archive (free download or streaming), Netflix (streaming), or GCSU Library (4 hour reserves). Check Can I Stream It?, a clearinghouse of film and television streaming sites, for availability to purchase films from Amazon, rented on disc from Netflix, or stream on services like Cinemax, Crackle, Encore, Epix, HBO, Hulu, Google Play, Showtime, Starz, Vudu, and XBox, XFinity Streampix, and YouTube.

 

Film or Television Episode	Availability
The Accountant	Apple
Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)	Apple | Amazon | GCSU
Friends, "The One with Five Steaks and an Eggplant" (Season 2, Episode 5)	Apple | Amazon | Netflix
Mad Men, "The Hobo Code" (Season 1, Episode 8)	Apple | Amazon | Netflix
The Pervert's Guide to Ideology	Apple | Amazon | Netflix

Marxist Criticism Survey

As we read Marxist literary theory this semester, we'll collect the questions Marxist literary critics ask texts.

• Terry Eagleton, Introduction Part I, Marxist Literary Theory
  • Anthropological criticism: "What is the function of art within social evolution? What are the material and biological bases of 'aesthetic' capacities? What are the relations between arts and human labour? How does art relate to myth, ritual, religion and language, and what are its social functions?" (7)
  • Political criticism: "What is at stake is no longer the biological basis of the aesthetic faculty but whether art should be openly tendentious or 'objectively' partisan, whether avant-garde experiment is a way of figuring the revolutionary future or merely of alienating the unsophisticated masses, whether art should tell it is at is or as it should be, whether it should be mirror or hammer, cognitive or affective, beamed in unabashed class terms at the proletariat or imaging forth the 'universal' socialist being already in the making. Should the literature of class society be dumped, re-fashioned or disseminated amongst the people in cheap popular editions? Was a bad poem by a worker better than a good one by a bourgeois? Should art be scaled down to the present level of the masses, or the masses elevated to the current level of art? Was it elitist to use pen and paper rather than scribbling your poems on people's shirt-fronts in the street? Was any literary form compatible with a committed art, or was realism to be given a special privilege?" (9)
  • Ideological criticism: "'Ideological' criticism has busied itself in the main with the relation between literary works and forms of social consciousness. It has also involved so subtle epistemological reflections: is art reflection, displacement, projection, refraction, transformation, reproduction, production? Is it an embodiment of social ideology or a critique of it? Or does it, as the Althusserians thought, critically 'distantiate' that ideology while remaining caught up in its logic? Would a 'revolutionary' artwork by one which had risen above ideology altogether, or one which transformed its readers' relations to that ideology? And which of the twenty different meanings of the term 'ideology' is at stake here? (11-2)
  • Economic criticism: "Its topic is what might be called modes of cultural production: its primary concern is neither with the concrete literary work, nor with the abstractions of a social formation, but with that whole intermediary space which is the material apparatuses of cultural production, all the way from theatres and printing presses to literary coteries and institutions of patronage, from rehearsing and reviewing to the social context of producers and recipients." (13)
• Drew Milne, "Introduction Part II: Reading Marxist Literary Theory, Marxist Literary Theory
  • "Literature can be read as a way of understanding the past or as a way of rewriting the present. It can be seen as a human resource which speaking of resistances to the alienation of reification of human labor. Or it can be figured as the ideological legitimation of such alienation and reification." (22) How does the text understand history and/or write/revise the present? How does the text resist alienation or reify ideology
• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Marxist Literary Theory
  • "Social Being and Social Consciousness": How does the social being depicted in the text determine characters' consciousness? How do conflicts between productive forces create social revolution in the text? How do the lives of the characters determine their consciousness? What real knowledge of life does the text offer?
  • "Uneven Character of Historical Development of Questions of Art": How is the text's artistic imagination based on the author/society's conception of nature and social relations?
  • "Poetry of the Future": Does the text create an art and a social revolution of the future or does it merely remember the past?
  • "Against Vulgar Marxism": What are the various and complex interactions of the text's economic base (material conditions of production both outside the text as it is produced and inside the text in terms of setting) to its superstructure (legal, political, philosophical, etc. both outside the text as it is produced and inside the text in terms of ideology)?
  • "On Realism": Does the work realistically portray life, particularly with regard to working class existence, and does it recover the working class's status as human beings?
• Lois Tyson, "Marxist Criticism," Critical Theory Today
  • "Does the work reinforce (intentionally or not) capitalist, imperialist, or classist values? If so, then the work may be said to have a capitalist, imperialist, or classist agenda, and it is the critic’s job to expose and condemn this aspect of the work.
  • How might the work be seen as a critique of capitalism, imperialism, or classism? That is, in what ways does the text reveal, and invite us to condemn, oppressive socioeconomic forces (including repressive ideologies)? If a work criticizes or invites us to criticize oppressive socioeconomic forces, then it may be said to have a Marxist agenda.
  • 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 conficted?
  • 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 conditions 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?" (68)
• Terry Eagleton, Marxism and Literary Criticism
  • "Literature and History": "It is first of all to understand the complex, indirect relations between those works and the ideological worlds they inhabit—relations which emerge not just in 'themes' and 'preoccupations', but in style, rhythm, image, quality, and (as we shall see later) form" (6)
    • ". . . all of the elements I have enumerated (the author's class position, ideological forms and their relation to literary forms, 'spirituality' and philosophy, techniques of literary production, aesthetic theory) are directly relevant to the base/superstructure model. What Marxist criticism looks for is the unique conjuncture of these elements. . . ." (16)
  • "Form and Content": "Forms are historically determined by the kind of 'content' they have to embody; they are changed, transformed, broken down and revolutionized as that content itself changes." (22)
    • "Form, I would suggest, is always a complex unity of at least three elements: it is partly shaped by a 'relatively autonomous' literary history of forms; it crystallizes out of certain dominant ideological structures, . . . and . . . it embodies a specific set of relations between author and audience. It is the dialectical unity between these elements that Marxist criticism is concerned to analyse." (26)
  • "The Writer and Commitment": As a Marxist literary critic, do you think 1) "Literature must be tendentious, 'party-minded', optimistic and heroic; it should be infused with a revolutionary romanticism'" like Stalin (38); or, 2) following the aims of Proletkult and the Bolshevik Revolution, do you "[regard] art as a class weapon and completely rejected bourgoeis culture" (39); or, like Lenin, do you think "Literature must become a cog and a screw of one single great social democratic machine" (40); or, like Trotsky, do you "[recognize] that artistic form is the product of social 'content', but at the same time [ascribe] to it a high degree of autonomy" (43)?
    • Do you subscribe to the reflectionist theory that art reflects reality and history (48) or do you think it's more complicated, like Brecht suggests, and done with "special mirrors" (49), or, as Trotsky professes, "a deflection, a changing and a transformation of reality, in accordance with the peculiar laws of art" (50), or as Lukács claims, "'critical realism', by which is meant that positive, critical and total conception of society characteristic of great nineteenth-century fiction" (52), or, as the English Marxists believe, "simultaneously to a machanistic view of art as the passive 'reflex' of the economic base, and to a Romantic belief in art as projecting an ideal world and stirring men to new values" (54)
  • "The Author as Producer": Marx: "A writer is a worker not in so far as he produces ideas, but in so far as he enriches the publisher, in so far as he is working for a wage." (59-60)
    • Benjamin: "What is the literary work's position within the relations of production of its time?" (61)
    • Brecht: ". . . the function of the theatre was to provide escapist entertainment for men trapped in that assumption. Against this, he posits the view that reality is a changing, discontinuous process, produced by men and so transformable by them." (64-5)
• V. I. Lenin, "Leo Tolstoy and His Epoch," Marxist Literary Theory
  • How does the author's world view reflect the historical and ideological epoch in which she lives?
• Leon Trotsky, "The Formalist School of Poetry and Marxism," Marxist Literary Theory
  • "Keeping on the plane of scientific investigation, Marxism seeks with the same assurance the social roots of the “pure” as well as of the tendencious art. It does not at all “incriminate” a poet with the thoughts and feelings which he expresses, but raises questions of a much more profound significance, namely, to which order of feelings does a given artistic work correspond in all its peculiarities? What are the social conditions of these thoughts and feelings? What place do they occupy in the historic development of a society and of a class? And, further, what literary heritage has entered into the elaboration of the new form? Under the influence of what historic impulse have the new complexes of feelings and thoughts broken through the shell which divides them from the sphere of poetic consciousness?" (50-1)
• Valentin Vološinov, "Concerning the Relationship of the Basis and Superstructures," Marxist Literary Theory
  • "Therefore, the forms of signs are conditioned above all by the social organizations of the participants involved and also by the immediate conditions of their interaction. When these forms change, so does sign. And it should be one of the tasks of the study of ideologies to trace this social life of the verbal sign. Only so approached can the problem of the relationship between sign and existence find its concrete expression; only then will the process of causal shaping of the sign by existence stand out as a process of genuine existence-to-sign-transit, of genuine dialectical refraction of existence in the sign." (65) How do the words and signs in the literary text, both those spoken by characters and used by the narrator or speaker, reflect the social conditions of the time and ideologically refract life?
• Walter Benjamin, Marxist Literary Theory
  • "Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia": "But the true, creative overcoming of religious illumination certainly does not lie in narcotics. It resides in a profane illumination, a materialistic, anthropological inspiration, to which hashish, opium, or whatever else can give an introductory lesson" (71). "And it is as magical experiments with words, not as artistic dabbling, that we must understand the passionate phonetic and graphical transformational games that have run through the whole literature of the avant-garde for the past fifteen years, whether it is called Futurism, Dadaism, or Surrealism" (74-5). "In the transformation of a highly contemplative attitude into revolutionary opposition, the hostility of the bourgeoisie toward every manifestation of radical intellectual freedom played a leading part" (75). Does the work counter religious illusion with real experience? Is the work of literature experimental? Does it participate in the avant-garde of its time? Is the work of literature part of a revolutionary movement (against bourgeois values)?
  • "Addendum to 'The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelare'": "In point of fact, the theory of l'art pour l'art assumed decisive importance around 1852, at a time when the bourgeoisie sought to take its 'cause' from the hands of the writers and the poets. . . . There the cause of his own class has become so far removed from the poet that the problem of a literature without an object becomes the centre of discussion" (82). What is the writer's attitude toward the morality of art? Does she use literature as a means to investigate and express social experience? Does the work balance literary concerns with socioeconomic concerns?
• Ernst Bloch, "Marxism and Poetry," Marxist Literary Theory
  • "Or, not everything remains idealist—in the sense of the unreal—which is added to the subject while it is being driven away; rather, the most important element of reality might comply with it—the not yet lived possibility. In such a manner meaningful poetry makes the world become aware of an accelerated flow of action, an elucidated waking dream of the essential. The world wants to be changed in this way. Therefore, the correlate of the world to the poetically appropriate action is precisely the tendency" (88): What idealist, utopian possibilities of historically transformational social change does the literary work suggest?
• Christopher Caudwell, "English Poets: The Period of Primitive Accumulation," Marxist Literary Theory
  • What are the poet's, poem's, and period's relationships to capitalism and bourgeois values? In what ways does the work reify and/or resist bourgeois ideology and illusion?
• Antonio Gramsci, The Gramsci Reader
  • "Hegemony, Relations of Force, Historical Bloc": "The realization of hegemonic apparatus, in so far as it creates a new ideological terrain, determines a reform of consciousness and of methods of knowledge: it is a fact of knowledge, a philosophical fact. In Crocean terms: when one succeeds in introducing a new morality in conformity with an new conception of the world, one finishes by introducing the conception as well; in other words, one determines a reform of the whole of philosophy" (192). "In other words, one could say that ideologies for the governed are mere illusions, a deception to which they are subject, while for the governing they constitute a willed and a knowing deception. For the philosophy of praxis, ideologies are anything but arbitrary; they are real historical facts which must be combatted and their nature as instruments of domination revealed, not for reasons of morality etc., but for reasons of political structure: in order to make the governed intellectually independent of the governing, in order to destroy one hegemony and create another, as a necessary moment in the revolutionizing of praxis" (196). How does the ruling class manipulate the consciousness of society with ideology in order to dominate, and how does society resist that hegemony?
  • "Art and the Struggle for a New Civilization": "In short, the type of literary criticism suitable to the philosophy of praxis is offered by De Sanctis, not by Croce or anyone else (least of all by Carducci). It must fuse the struggle for a new culture (that is, for a new humanism) and criticism of social life, feelings and conceptions of the world with aesthetic or purely artistic criticism, and it must do so with heat and passion, even if it takes the form of sarcasm" (394). How does the work of literature function in not only aesthetic terms but also in social terms? In other words, what does it criticize about the current society and what does it suggest about the possibility of a new culture?
• Alick West, "The Relativity of Literary Value," Marxist Literary Theory
  • "This standpoint would destroy the possibility of aesthetic enjoyment; by denying the objective existence of Shakespeare's value apart from his popularity, it isolates the pleasure we actually have in it from the material practical activity by which we live, and in which, instead of thinking with this superior relativity, we know that our judgements are not only temporary class prejudices, but contain truth" (104). "The value of literature springs from the fact that it continues and changes the organization of social energy; we perceive value through the awakening of the same kind of energy in ourselves" (105). What is the aesthetic value of the literary work in comparison to its socialist value?
• Bertolt Brecht, "A Short Organum for the Theatre," Marxist Literary Theory
  • "We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself" (119). Does the play employ a critical approach and alienating effect that transforms the audience's social consciousness?
• Roland Barthes, "The Tasks of Brechtian Criticism," Marxist Literary Theory
  • Ideology: "The ideological theme, in Brecht, could be precisely defined as a dynamic of events which combines observation and explanation, ethics and politics: according to the profoundest Marxist teaching, each theme is at once the expression of what men want to be and of what things are, at once a protest (because it unmasks) and a reconciliation (because it explains)" (139). Does the play observe social reality and explain the ideological agenda behind social reality?
  • Semiology: "All Brechtian art protests against the Zhdanovian confusion between ideology and semiology, which has led to such an aesthetic impasse" (139). Does the play critique socialist realism from an experimental formalist standpoint?
  • Morality: "Brechtian theatre is a moral theatre, that is, a theatre which asks, with the spectator: what is to be done in such a situation" (139). What ethical stance does the play propose?

In Class Activities

1. Marx and Engels on Literature and Art

Let's divide into 5 groups of 2 to 3 members, to discuss what Marx and Engels themselves say about culture in general and art and literature in particular. Each group should respond to two questions based on their one assigned excerpt.

 

Here are the questions:

• Select the most important sentence or passage in the excerpt and explain it in your own words.
• What significant idea does the excerpt convey regarding Marx and Engel's conception of culture, art, and/or literature?

Here are the excerpts:

1. "Social Being and Social Consciousness"
2. "Uneven Character of Historical Development and Questions of Art"
3. "Poetry of the Future"
4. "Against Vulgar Marxism"
5. "On Realism"

2. A Marxist Approach to Interpreting Literature

Let's divide into 4 groups, of 3 to 4 members, to apply the questions Marxist critics ask literature (as defined by Lois Tyson in Critical Theory Today) to a specific short story, F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited." Groups should discuss their assigned question for about 10 minutes, feeling free to bring in other terms and issues from Tyson's overview, before reporting their findings to the class.

1. Does the work reinforce (intentionally or not) capitalist, imperialist, or classist values? If so, then the work may be said to have a capitalist, imperialist, or classist agenda, and it is the critic’s job to expose and condemn this aspect of the work.
2. How might the work be seen as a critique of capitalism, imperialism, or classism? That is, in what ways does the text reveal, and invite us to condemn, oppressive socioeconomic forces (including repressive ideologies)? If a work criticizes or invites us to criticize oppressive socioeconomic forces, then it may be said to have a Marxist agenda.
3. 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 conficted?
4. 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 conditions reveal about the history of class struggle?

3. Reading Literary Theory

Now that the class has shifted from introductions and overviews of Marxist literary theory to primary texts of Marxist literary theory itself, let's practice reading literary theory. Divide into groups of two and discuss the following issues in response to your group's assigned article.

 

Here are the questions:

1. What is the topic of the article?
2. What is the main idea of the article?
3. Select one passage that you understand and explain it.
4. Select one passage that you don't fully understand and ask a question about it.

Here are the articles:

• Walter Benjamin, "Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia" and "Addendum to 'The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire'" (Eagleton MLT 69-83)
• Ernst Bloch, "Marxism and Poetry" (Eagleton MLT 84-90)
• Christopher Caudwell, "English Poets: The Period of Primitive Accumulation" (Eagleton MLT 91-102)

4. Brechtian Criticism and Exam Review

Today is our last day of theoretical and interpretative discussion before the take-home exam is due. Let's start rearranging the desks in a semi-circle or horseshoe, which is more conducive to class discussion. And let's review significant issues in Marxist literary theory and interpret Brecht's play, The Good Person of Szechuan, by answering the following three questions.

1. On a piece of paper, write down one key idea of Marxist literary theory that you are sure about, and then
2. Write down one question about Marxist literary theory that you are unsure about.
3. On another piece of paper, write down a response to the one Roland Barthes' questions for Brechtian criticism that you are assigned.
   1. Ideology: "The ideological theme, in Brecht, could be precisely defined as a dynamic of events which combines observation and explanation, ethics and politics: according to the profoundest Marxist teaching, each theme is at once the expression of what men want to be and of what things are, at once a protest (because it unmasks) and a reconciliation (because it explains)" (139). Does the play observe social reality and explain the ideological agenda behind social reality?
   2. Semiology: "All Brechtian art protests against the Zhdanovian confusion between ideology and semiology, which has led to such an aesthetic impasse" (139). Does the play critique socialist realism from an experimental formalist standpoint?
   3. Morality: "Brechtian theatre is a moral theatre, that is, a theatre which asks, with the spectator: what is to be done in such a situation" (139). What ethical stance does the play propose?

5. Brechtian Criticism Redux

Since we focused on reviewing for the exam during our last class discussion, let's return to Bertolt Brecht's The Good Person of Szechuan. Come to class with a prepared response to the four following questions:

1. Characterize the setting, protagonist, conflict, and theme of the play.
2. Ideology: "The ideological theme, in Brecht, could be precisely defined as a dynamic of events which combines observation and explanation, ethics and politics: according to the profoundest Marxist teaching, each theme is at once the expression of what men want to be and of what things are, at once a protest (because it unmasks) and a reconciliation (because it explains)" (139). Does the play observe social reality and explain the ideological agenda behind social reality?
3. Semiology: "All Brechtian art protests against the Zhdanovian confusion between ideology and semiology, which has led to such an aesthetic impasse" (139). Does the play critique socialist realism from an experimental formalist standpoint?
4. Morality: "Brechtian theatre is a moral theatre, that is, a theatre which asks, with the spectator: what is to be done in such a situation" (139). What ethical stance does the play propose?

Presentation Schedule

Undergraduate students sign up for 1 Article Summary (AS) and 1 Close Reading (CR).

Graduate students sign up for 1 Presentation (P). Article summaries are due in GeorgiaVIEW the day before they are scheduled to be presented; Close readings and presentations are due in GeorgiaVIEW the day they are scheduled to be presented.

 

Written Date	Presentation Date	Assignment	Student
T, 9-8	T, 9-8	Close Reading: Ai, Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, Lowell, or Plath	CR1 Alexandra Campos
			CR2 Valerie Parrott
W, 9-9	R, 9-10	Article Summary: Lenin or Vološinov	AS1
		Article Summary: Trotsky	AS2
M, 9-14	T, 9-15	Article Summary: Benjamin, Bloch, or Caudwell	AS3 Valerie Parrott
R, 9-17	R, 9-17	Article Summary: Gramsci	AS4 Shelby Smith
M, 9-21	T, 9-22	Article Summary: West or Barthes	AS5 Alexandra Campos
		Article Summary: Brecht	AS6 Nicholas Cowles
R, 9-24	R, 9-24	Close Reading: Brecht	CR3
			CR4
R, 10-1	R, 10-1	Article Summary: Lukács or Volpe	AS7 Paige Smith
M, 10-5	T, 10-6	Article Summary: Adorno, "Commitment"	AS8 Jacob Raphael
		Article Summary: Adorno, "The Schema of Mass Culture"	AS9 Ciera Reeves
T, 10-6	T, 10-6	Presentation: Adorno	P1
W, 10-7	R, 10-8	Article Summary: Goldmann or Sartre	AS10 Samantha Barrow
R, 10-15	R, 10-15	Close Reading: Cheever	CR5 Kristen Johnson
			CR6 Jacob Raphael
		Close Reading: Morrison	CR7 Ciera Reeves
			CR8 Phyllis Reeves
T, 10-20	T, 10-20	Presentation: Althusser	P2
M, 10-19	T, 10-20	Article Summary: Althusser	AS11 Phyllis Reeves
R, 10-22	R, 10-22	Close Reading: Ravenhill or Parks	CR9 Paige Smith
			CR10 Emily Exner
M, 10-26	T, 10-27	Article Summary: Williams or Balibar and Macherey	AS12 Kristen Johnson
T, 11-3	T, 11-3	Close Reading: The Accountant or Logorama	CR11 Chelsea Cobb
			CR12 Mykel Johnson
T, 11-10	T, 11-10	Close Reading: Friends or Mad Men	CR13 Nicholas Cowles
			CR14 Samantha Barrow
W, 11-11	R, 11-12	Article Summary: Eagleton, "Categories for a Materialist Criticism"	AS13 Emily Exner
		Article Summary: Eagleton, "Towards a Science of the Text"	AS14 Mykel Johnson
R, 11-12	R, 11-12	Presentation: Eagleton	P3
M, 11-16	T, 11-17	Article Summary: The Marxist-Feminist Literature Collective or Jameson	AS15 Marykate Malena
R, 11-18	R, 11-19	Presentation: Jameson	P4
R, 11-19	R, 11-19	Close Reading: Birdman	CR15 Marykate Malena
			CR16 Shelby Smith
M, 11-23	T, 11-24	Article Summary: Ahmad, Amuta, or Callinicos	AS16 Chelsea Cobb

Article Summary

GeorgiaVIEW Post

You will write an article summary and post it to GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Article Summary on the day before we are scheduled to discuss the article so I have time to read your response before class. Here is the presentation schedule.

 

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

• be 2-3 pages long,
• summarize the article's Marxist 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

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 (without simply reading your written summary) and broaching issues for class discussion.

Due Dates

1. Your written assignment will be due in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Article Summary on the day before we are scheduled to discuss an article. Summaries will be penalized one letter grade for each day, not class period, that they are turned in late. It is your responsibility to check the sign up schedule and complete the assignment on time.
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 one letter grade penalty.
3. I will return your graded assignment to you in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Article Summary 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 Dropbox.
4. For example, we are scheduled to discuss Trotsky on Thursday, 9-10. Therefore, someone's summary will be due in GeorgiaVIEW on Wednesday, 9-9. In class on Thursday, 9-10, that student will informally present the main ideas of Trotsky's essay. I will return the graded article summary to her the following week in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Article Summary. 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.

Close Reading

You will collaborate with a classmate to analyze, using a Marxist critical approach to literature, a section of literary work (a poem, a short story, a play, or a film) in a formal 5-6 page paper and formal 7-10 minute presentation. Your essay and presentation should 1) do a close reading of a section of the literary work 2) from a Marxist perspective (i.e., discussing such content issues as socioeconomic class and ideology and/or such formal issues as genre and style) and 3) arguing the section's centrality to understanding the core conflicts and overall theme of the work it comes from. Your single, collaboratively written essay should be driven by a thesis that argues the work's issues and ideas from a Marxist perspective and logically organized by close reading of the text. Your well-organized presentation should clearly convey your ideas to the class, and each member should speak during the presentation.

Parameters

• Length: paper 5-6 pages, presentation 7-10 minutes
• Format: MLA style in Word or RTF format (I suggest using this template)
• Due: The paper is due in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Close Reading 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 > Dropbox > Close Reading - 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 close, Marxist reading of the work; analyzing of the text's core conflict and overall theme; and presentation skills; your project will be graded approximately one week after submission in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Close Reading. Here's how to calculate your course grade.

Exam

The take-home essay exam will test your understanding of Marxist literary theory and compel you to apply Marxist literary theory in interpreting a work of literature (a poem, a short story, a play, or a film). Feel free to use overviews by Terry Eagletom and Lois Tyson to support your understanding of general Marxist literary theory. Do not use a specific theorist more than once; discuss four specific theorists over the course of the exam.

• Essay 1: Theory
  • Explain the general principles of Marxist literary theory and explicate how two specific Marxist literary theorists that we've read (Lenin, Trotsky, Vološinov, Benjamin, Block, Caudwell, Gramsci, West, Brecht) approach literature and art.
• Essay 2: Interpretation
  • Choose either 1) Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric," 2) Toni Cade Bambara's "The Lesson," 3) Sophie Treadwell's Machinal, or 4) Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler, and then write a thesis-driven essay that interprets the work of literature from a Marxist perspective, applying both the general questions Marxist literary critics ask and the ideas of two specific Marxist literary theorists that we've read (Lenin, Trotsky, Vološinov, Benjamin, Block, Caudwell, Gramsci, West, Brecht).

Parameters

• Length: 5-6 pages per essay, 10-12 pages total
• Format: MLA style in Word or RTF format (I suggest using this template)
• Due: The paper is due in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Exam on Tuesday, September 29
• Grade: Your exam will be assessed in terms of your understanding of Marxist literary theory in general, your comprehension of the four specific Marxist literary theorists, and your ability to apply Marxist literary theory to an interpretation of a work of literature. Your exam will be graded approximately one week after submission in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Exam. Here's how to calculate your course grade.

Theoretical Paper

While the essay exam required you to explain and apply Marxist criticism, the theoretical paper compels you to delve deeper into a specific aspect of Marxist literary theory by comparing and contrasting two theoretical articles covered in class. Where does the two theorists' Marxist approach to literature converge, and where does it diverge? What key idea do they share and how does that same idea set them apart? You may choose from any two theoretical articles by two specific theorists (Lenin, Trotsky, Vološinov, Benjamin, Block, Caudwell, Gramsci, West, Brecht, , Lukács, Volpe, Adorno, Goldmann, Sartre, Althusser, Williams, Balibar and Macheray), but not theorists you used in your exam. For instance, you could compare and contrast Gramsci's idea of cultural hegemony with Althusser's concept of ideological state apparatuses; or, you could compare and contrast how Bloch and Caudwell approach poetry; or, you could compare Sartre and Althusser's ideals regarding art; or, you could compare and contrast two particular theoretical approaches to a similar topic of your choosing.

Parameters

• Length: 6-8 pages
• Format: MLA style in Word or RTF format (I suggest using this template)
• Due: The paper is due in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Theoretical Paper on Thursday, October 29
• Grade: Your essay will be assessed in terms of your comprehension of the two specific Marxist literary theorists, and your ability to compare and contrast their ideas and critical approaches to literature. Your essay will be graded approximately one week after submission in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Theoretical Paper. Here's how to calculate your course grade.

Research Paper

The exam tested your understanding of Marxist literary theory, the theoretical paper required you compare and contrast the work of two theorists, and the close reading asked you to look at a literary work through a general Marxist lens. In the 8-10 page research paper, you can either interpret a literary work of your choice outside of class but from any of the genres covered in class (poetry, fiction, drama, film, television) through the specific, complementary Marxist lens of 2-3 theorists on our syllabus and incorporate 3-4 scholarly criticisms (journal articles, books, book chapters) to support your interpretation, or you can research and debate an issue pertinent to Marxist literary criticism using 2-3 theorists on our syllabus as a starting point and incorporating 3-4 scholarly criticisms (journal articles, books, book chapters) of Marxist theory to support your analysis of the issue. In other words, write an 8-10 page research paper that either interprets a work of literature using Marxist literary theory or investigates an issue in Marxist literature theory. On Thursday, December 3, you will present a paragraph explaining your topic, research question (or thesis), and theoretical framework (what theoretical articles your paper will use).

Parameters

• Length: 8-10 pages
• Format: MLA style in Word or RTF format (I suggest using this template)
• Due: The topic presentation is Thursday, December 3; and the final research paper is due in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Research Paper on Thursday, December 10.
• Grade: Your essay will be assessed in terms of your comprehension and application of Marxist theory as well as the quality and integration of scholarly research.You can access your final grade in the course via PAWS on Wednesday, December 16. In order to read and assess all the exams and papers in my three classes by the final grade deadline, I will not be giving feedback on final projects this semester. I am glad to put your paper grade in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Research Paper if you ask me to do so on your paper. I am happy to provide feedback at the beginning of spring semester if you email me to set up a conference. Here's how to calculate your course grade.

Book Review

While the annotated bibliography and presentation require you to research, evaluate, and teach a theorist, the book review compels you to read and evaluate an entire book of Marxist literary. After consulting with the professor on a suitable book (for instance a book from which our class is reading an excerpt, or another of your choosing), write a 8-10 page essay that summarizes the book's overall theoretical or critical claim and then evaluates the thesis and methodology. Your essay should both appreciate and interrogate the book. The GeorgiaVIEW course packet contains book reviews; and you can find more examples using GALILEO.

Parameters

• Length: 8-10 pages
• Format: MLA Style in Word or RTF format (I suggest using this template)
• Due: The written component is due in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Book Review on either Tuesday, September 29 or Thursday, October 29 (If you submit the Book Review on September 29, you must submit the Theoretical Paper on October 29. If you submit the Book Review on October 29, you must submit the Theoretical Paper on September 29).
• Grades: Your assignment will be graded on its appreciative, summary understanding of the theory as well as its ability to evaluate and interrogate the book. You can retrieve your graded assignment approximately one week after submission in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Book Review. 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.

Annotated Bibliography and Presentation

Graduates students will research a theorist, compose an annotated bibliography of at least 10 scholarly sources interpreting the theorist and her work, and teach the theorist's article to the class, i.e., lecture and moderate class discussion, with some help from one of the articles on the work. One week before the presentation/teaching demonstration, graduate students must meet with the professor to go over their lesson plan. The citations in the annotated bibliography should be formatted to MLA style, each annotation should be approximately 100 words long.

Parameters

• Length: 10 100-word annotated bibliographies, a 30-45 minute teaching demonstration
• Format: MLA Style in Word or RTF format (I suggest using this template)
• Due: The written component is due in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Dropbox > Annotated Bibliography and Presentation on the scheduled presentation date.
• Grades: You will be graded on the quality of your research, annotations, and teaching demonstration. You can retrieve your graded assignment approximately one week after your presentation in GeorgiaVIEW > Dropbox > Course Work > Annotated Bibliography and Presentation. 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.