ENGLISH 598: Research in English
	Professor Stuart Barnett 309 Willard Hall 832-2758 barnetts@ccsu.edu TuW: 6.20-6.50, 9.30-10; Th 10-12.30, 3.15-4.15

Texts:

Vincent Leitch, The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism
Joseph Gibaldi, MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers

This course is meant to introduce you to the methods and procedures of graduate research.  As so much of contemporary literary scholarship is informed by a vast array of critical movements, this course will focus for the most part on theory and criticism.  Accordingly, you will be introduced to a range of theoretical movements.  Through a selection of texts the course will explore the theoretical background of contemporary scholarship.  The course will be run according to a seminar format.  You are expected to do the readings and to come to class prepared to discuss your reactions. You will present an oral report. You will also do in-depth research on a major literary figure.  This will culminate in a research paper on a work by that author.  The research paper is intended to make you move beyond the standard impressionistic undergraduate essay.  You are to develop a sense of the scholarship and issues that surround the work of an individual author.  You will hand this research paper in, receive comments, and then hand in a rewrite that will be graded.  There will be a final.

NA = The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism 

Sept. 3

Introduction

What Do We Teach--And Why?

E. D. Hirsch, "Introduction," Cultural Literacy
Harold Bloom, Introduction, The Western Canon

Why the End of Literary Studies Has Already Happened

Francine Prose, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read," Harpers
Rita Kramer, "Teaching, Knowledge, and the Public Good," Ed School Follies

Library Session (class will meet regularly scheduled classroom)

MLA Bibliography; Internet; Dictionaries; Bibliographies; Reference Guides; Inter-Library Loan

—following the library presentation, we will continue with the seminar:

Overview: The Transformation of Literature and Literary Studies

Leitch, "Introduction to Theory and Criticism" NA: 1-28
Eagleton, Literary Theory NA: 2240-2249
TOPIC DUE/ORAL REPORT TOPICS DUE

Philosophical Background

Plato, Republic  49-80
Gospel According to St. Matthew 13
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, NA: 504-535
Stuart Barnett, "Kant's Critique of Judgment," Encyclopedia of Romanticism
Friedrich von Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man  NA: 571-581
Georg Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, Lectures on Fine Art  NA: 626-644
PRACTICE BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE

The Linguistic Turn: Semiotics

Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics   NA: 956-976
Barthes, Mythologies, "From Work to Text," "The Death of the Author"  NA: 1457-1476
Jean Baudrillard, "The Precession of Simulacra"  NA: 1729-1740
BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE

Marxism to Neo-Marxism

Karl Marx, "Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy"  NA: 774-5; "Commodities" NA: 776-782
Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"  NA: 1166--1185
Horkheimer/Adorno, "The Culture Industry"  NA: 1220-1239
Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses"  NA: 1483-1508
AbSTRACT DUE

Deconstruction

Paul de Man, "Semiology and Rhetoric" NA: 1509-1526
Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, Dissemination  NA: 1815-1876
Denis Donoghue, "The Strange Case of Paul de Man,"The New York Review of Books [reserve]
Colin Campbell, "The Tyranny of the Yale Critics," The New York Times Magazine [reserve]
James Atlas, "The Case of Paul de Man," The New York Times Magazine [reserve]
Mid-Term Handed Out

Feminist Criticism

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own  NA: 1017-1029
Hélène Cixious, "The Laugh of the Medusa"  NA: 2035-2054
Susan Gubar anad Sandra Gilbert, "Plain Jane's Progress," The Madwoman in the Attic [reserve]
Gayatri Spivak, "Three Women's Texts" [reserve]
Mid-Term Due

Oct. 22

Psychoanalytic Criticism

Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, "The 'Uncanny,'" "Fetishism" NA: 913-955
Jacques Lacan, "The Mirror Stage," "The Agency of the Letter," "The Signification of the Phallus" NA: 1278-1310
Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" NA: 2179-2192

New Historicism

Michel Foucault, "What is an Author?" Discipline and Punish, The History of Sexuality  NA: 1615-1667
Alexander Nehemas, "Subject and Abject," The New Republic [reserve]
Stephen Greenblatt, "Introduction"  NA: 2250-2254; and "Fiction and Friction" R
Adam Begley, "The Tempest Around Stephen Greenblatt," The New York Times Magazine [handout]

Nov. 5

Cultural Studies

Stuart Hall, "Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies" NA: 1895-1909
Pierre Bourdieu, "Introduction," Distinction  NA: 1806-1814
Dick Hebdige, Subculture  NA: 2445-2457
Stuart Moulthrop, "You Say You Want a Revolution?" NA: 2502-2524
RESEARCH PAPER DRAFT DUE

Post-Colonial Studies

Homi Bhabha, "The Commitment to Theory"  NA: 2377-2397
Gayatri Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" NA: 2193-2207
Edward Said, "Introduction," Orientalism NA: 1986-2011

CONFERENCES

Individual conferences will be scheduled to discuss your research paper

Dec. 3

Gay, Lesbian, and Queer Theory

Eve Sedgwick, Between Men; Epistemology of the Closet NA: 2432-2444
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, Preface, NA: 2488
Bonnie Zimmerman, "What Has Never Been" NA: 2338-2359
Adrienne Rich, "Compulsory Heterosexuality" NA: 1759-1780

Dec. 10

Review Session
RESEARCH PAPER REWRITE DUE (hand in draft as well)

Grades and Requirements:

The grade for the course breaks down as follows:

Final   25%
Midterm 20%
Research Paper 40% [10% form; 30% content]
Oral Report  10%
Bibliographies 5%

As stated, you are expected to come to class prepared to discuss the readings.  Attendance is required.  An inadequate bibliography will deduct 5% from the final grade of the research paper; an inadequate draft will deduct 20% from the final grade of the research paper.

This course is divided into two distinct components, each of which is meant to prepare you for further graduate study.  1).  The course will consider a range of critical and theoretical approaches.  This will introduce you to the various methodologies used to examine literary texts.  2).  You will undertake a research project of your own choosing that will culminate in a research paper.  This should teach you the fundamentals of graduate-level research and essay writing.

One final word about your research project.  This is a serious undertaking.  It constitutes the largest portion of your course grade.  You are expected to be working on this project seriously and diligently throughout the semester.  You will be receiving one-on-one guidance from me in your research project.  It is essential that you begin organizing, planning, and drafting your paper at an early date.  Remember, you are being evaluated on the process of writing a paper as well as the finished product. This means, for instance, that you should not be realizing two weeks before the draft is due that the topic is not working for you and that you'd like to switch to another author.

While you are not expected to adopt one of the theoretical positions in the course for your paper, you are required to maintain some basic critical principles.  1).  The author does not guarantee any meaning in the text.  Avoid biographical criticism.  2).  The text is not a simple "example" of larger social problems or issues.   3).  Literary characters are not real people whose motives and intentions permit conjecture.  They are artifacts of language.  --These tenets do not tie you to any particular school.  They are, however, common assumptions shared by all the critics we will read.

The midterm and final will cover movements and critics discussed in the course. They will be predicated upon a familiarity with and comprehension of the assigned texts.

Oral Report: You will do one oral report. It will be on a theoretical text in the Norton. Provide a focused analysis of the assigned text or some specific aspect within it.  It should last 10 minutes.  Don’t wing it—prepare something. Do not simply summarize or tell us how you "felt" about it. Analyze.

17-09-2003