Engl. 500: Syllabus
600 Description | Requirements | Assignments | Assessment Criteria & Contracts | Links to Resources
¨ Be sure to download and print each assignment as well as the assessment criteria for each and bring to class on the appropriate night. Please check syllabus for date that you’ll need each assignment. All assignments and assessment criteria are available by clicking on the “Description” menu on the Web CT course homepage. Click on “Assignments” to download and print each assignment. Click on “Assessment Criteria and Contracts” to download and print each set of criteria.
¨ Be sure to download, print, and read each theory guide by the due date. Theory Guides are available by clicking on the course Tool Box on the course homepage and then clicking on either the bulletin board or the theory guides tool.
8/23 Introduction: Objectives, Expectations, and Procedures
Library Workshop (7:00 in library instructional room):
Orientation to Web CT Format
Explanation of Library Research Problems and Electronic Technology Tasks
Electronic Technology and Literary Scholarship: e-mail, McConnell Library Master Menu, Interlibrary Loan, RU Catalog, VT's Catalog, Ovid (MLA Bibliography, History and Social Sciences Bibliographies), Library of Congress and other Catalogs, First Search (World Cat, etc.), listservs, Project Muse, J-Stor, InfoTrac (to be continued on 9/13)
8/30 Issues in Contemporary Literary Studies; Writing the
Critical Review
Log #1 Due: Barry, "Introduction" (Barry, 1-9); Vendler, Graff, Pratt, Bloom (all in Richter, Falling into Theory). This week you won’t apply a specific theory in your log. Instead, try to nail down the thesis of each essay first; then agree or disagree with the author’s assumptions about literature, criticism, teaching literature. What do you think of each writer’s conclusions? Explain your reasons. Be as specific as you can, citing specific passages from the texts.
Explanation of Critical Review Assignment. Download and print Critical Review Assignment and Assessment
Criteria files and bring hard copies to this evening’s class.
Strategies for Writing the Critical Review
9/6 Varieties Of Literary Scholarship: Formalism &
Traditional Historicism
Log #2 Due: Barry, "Theory before 'Theory'--Liberal Humanism" (Barry 11-36); Ryan, “Formalism” (Readings); Crane, "The Houyhnhnms, the Yahoos, and the History of Ideas"; Lewalski, "Historical Scholarship" (all in Readings). In the first part of your log, explain two things: 1) the theoretical premises of formalist criticism and 2) the theoretical premises of traditional historical scholarship. In the second part, choose a specific literary text and explain first how you would apply a new critical approach. Then explain how you would apply a traditional historical approach. How would each approach to the text differ from the other? What would you look at in each kind of approach? In the third part of your log, analyze Crane’s article. What assumptions seem to ground his work—assumptions about “truth,” about finding the “most valid interpretation” of a text, about the purpose of literary scholarship? What do you think about these assumptions? Why? Lewalski’s article is simply an overview of various kinds of historical scholarship. Read it quickly, paying special attention to the final section in which she describes the method used by historical scholarship.
Library Research Problems Due. Submit your solutions to the Web CT
Bulletin Board.
Research Project Assignment: Download and print Research Project
Assignment and Assessment Criteria files and bring hard copies to class.
Research Project: Exploratory/Speculative Freewriting on three Possible
Subjects and Why You're Interested in Them
9/13 Varieties of Scholarship: Structuralism(s) &
Semiotics
Log #3 Due: Barry, "Structuralism" (39-49. Don't read the whole chapter); Barthes, excerpt from "Myth Today" (in Readings read only pages 111-133; 145-155); Theory Guides on Structuralism and Barthes (click Tool icon on course homepage and then click on "Theory Guides" option to find these notes).
Research Project: Preparing an Annotated Bibliography. Download and print Working Bibliography and
Annotated Bibliography files and bring hard copies to class.
Library Workshop (8:00-9:30 in library instructional room): continuation from 8/23.
9/20 Varieties of Scholarship: Reader-Oriented Approaches
Log #4 Due: Booker, “Reader-Response Literary Criticism”; Iser, "The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach," and "The Rudiments of Aesthetic Response"; Baker, “Engendering Change" (all in Readings); Theory Guide on Iser (click Tool icon on course homepage and then click on "Theory Guides" option to find these notes)
8:30 P. M. Library Computer Workshop: More Electronic Resources
(Whatever we didn't cover last week). Work on Annotations (first set due:
10/18) and Electronic Technology Tasks
9/27 Using Electronic Resources for Textual/Contextual Research
Critical Review Due
Library Workshop (6:30 in Library instructional room): Ovid (MLA Bibliography, History and Social Science Bibliographies), listservs, Electronic Journals, and other WWW Resources (Jack Lynch's English and American Literature Resources on-line; Voice of the Shuttle), Search Engines for WWW Resources Site.
Research Project: Freewriting about Finalized Subject for Research
Project. To be handed in for feedback
Research Project: Contextual Research, Collateral Areas of Research &
Preparing a Working Bibliography
10/4 Varieties of Scholarship: Post-Structuralism and
Deconstruction
Log #5 Due: Barry, "Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction" (Barry 61-80); Derrida, "That Dangerous Supplement" (Readings); Theory Guide on Derrida (click Tool icon on course homepage and then click on "Theory Guides" option to find these notes)
Discussion of freewrites on research projects
8:30 Library Time to Work on Annotations (first set due: 10/18) and
Electronic Technology Tasks
10/11 Varieties of Scholarship: Marxism
Log #6 Due: Barry, "Marxist Criticism" (Barry 156-171); Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses"; Baker, "'The politics of they': Dorothy Allison's Bastard out of Carolina as Critique of Gender, Class, and Sexual Ideologies” (all in Readings); Theory Guide on Althusser (click Tool icon on course homepage and then click on "Theory Guides" option to find these notes)
Research Project: Essential
Features of a Journal Article
8:30 Library Time to Work on Annotations (first set due: 10/18)
10/18 Varieties of Scholarship: Discourse Theory and
Foucauldian Analysis
Electronic Technology Tasks Due
Log #7 Due: Kaufman, Gross Indecency; Foucault, “The Subject and Power" (Readings); Foucault, “The Repressive Hypothesis" in History of Sexuality, 17-49; Bakhtin, "Discourse in the Novel" (Readings); Theory Guides on Foucault and Bakhtin (click Tool icon on course homepage and then click on "Theory Guides" option to find these notes)
10/25 Varieties of Scholarship: New Historicism &
Cultural Materialism
First Set of Annotations Due. Submit roughly 1/2 the number required for
the grade you wish to achieve. See Grading Contracts and Assessment Criteria
for Research Project (including annotations) by clicking
"Description" on our course homepage. Click on "Grading
Criteria." Then click on "Project" and read the criteria for
each grade level to find out how many annotations are required.
Log #8 Due: Barry, "New Historicism and Cultural Materialism" (Barry 172-190); Montrose, "Renaissance Literary Studies and the Subject of History"; Will, “Literary Politics”; Greenblatt, “The Politics of Culture” (all in Readings); Theory Guides on Montrose and New Historicism (click Tool icon on course homepage and then click on "Theory Guides" option to find these notes)
Sharing of Research Tips: Useful Resources, Helpful Hints, Frustrations,
Triumphs
Research Project: Writing a
Proposal for a Conference Paper or Panel/Writing an Abstract of a Conference
Paper
Writing the M.A. Thesis Proposal
11/1 Varieties of Scholarship: Feminism(s)
Working Bibliography Due
Log #9 Due: Barry, "Feminist Criticism" (Barry 121-138); Showalter, “Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness"; Baker, "'The Uncanny Stranger on Display'"; Cixous, "The Laugh of the Medusa"; Lorde, "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Redefining Difference"; Baker, "'Writing against the current': The Politics of Subjectivity in Three Guineas" (all in Readings); Theory Guides on Feminisms & Cixous (click Tool icon on course homepage and then click on "Theory Guides" option to find these notes)
Research Project: Essential Features of a Conference Paper
Research Project Scholarly Essay: 1. Journal Article; or 2. Conference Paper
11/8 Varieties of Scholarship: Gay and Lesbian Criticism
& Queer Theory
Log #10 Due: "Lesbian and Gay Criticism" (Barry 139-155); Sedgwick (Richter 182-188); Butler, "Gender Insubordination" (Readings); Baker, "Dorothy Allison's Topography of Resistance" (Readings); Wittig, excerpts from The Straight Mind, 1-32 (Readings); Theory Guides on Butler, Sedgwick and Wittig (click Tool icon on course homepage and then click on "Theory Guides" option to find these notes)
Exploratory/Speculative Freewriting on Scholarly Essay
11/10 Last day to withdraw from
classes with a “w”
11/15 Varieties of Scholarship: African-American and
Post-Colonial Theories
Log #11 Due: Morrison, "Unspeakable Things Unspoken" (Readings); Morrison, "Black Matter(s)” (Richter 310-322); Fanon, "The Fact of Blackness" from Black Skin/White Masks (Readings); JanMohamed, “The Manichean Allegory" (Readings); Barry, "Post-Colonial Criticism" (Barry 191-201); Theory Guide on Morrison and JanMohamed (click Tool icon on course homepage and then click on "Theory Guides" option to find these notes)
Second Set of Annotations Due. Submit the remainder of the total number
required for the grade you wish to achieve. See Grading Contracts and
Assessment Criteria for Research Project (including annotations) by clicking
"Description" on our course homepage. Click on "Grading
Criteria." Then click on "Project" and read the criteria for
each grade level to find out how many annotations are required.
The Fine Art of the Scholarly Content Note; Or, How to Prove You Know
Your Stuff
Exploratory/Speculative Freewrite on Scholarly Essay
11/29 First Draft of
Scholarly Essay Due
All Previous Reader's Logs Due. If you opt for contract grading,
self-assessment statement also due. Before writing your self-assessment
statement, see grading criteria. Your self-assessment should make explicit
reference to those criteria.
Individual conferences & writing workshop for peer review of drafts
12/6 Second Draft of
Scholarly Essay Due
Individual conferences & writing workshop for peer review of drafts
Final Exam: Research Project and
Oral Presentation Due. See grading criteria for self-assessment if you opt for that
form of evaluation.
Submit in a large portfolio folder your whole project (annotations,
working bibliography, first two drafts of essay, final draft of essay with
works cited page, self-assessment statement if you opt for that).
Oral Presentation: 10 minute well-prepared, formal overview of the
project. Since we have a large class and only a three-hour time slot, PLEASE
keep your oral presentations within the 10 minute limit.
600 Description | Requirements | Assignments | Assessment Criteria & Contracts | Links to Resources