Provisional Course Schedule
All readings must be done before class on the day assigned and you should bring the assigned texts to class. It may be helpful to bring the Bedford Glossary (BG) every day.
Week 1
T Aug 27 Introductions
R Aug 29 What we talk about when we talk about “literature”: Richter (blog); BG: canon, text, periodicity, anxiety of influence, form, genre, novel, poetry, drama, author, authorial intention, representation, discourse, sign, signifier, signified
Week 2
T Sept 3 Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby—yes, I do mean all of it. BG: Modern Period
R Sept 5 Tyson, “New Criticism” (135-167); BG: aesthetics
Week 3
T Sept 10 Tyson, “Psychoanalytic Criticism” (11-52); BG reinforcement: psychoanalytic criticism
R Sept 12 Tyson, “Marxist Criticism” (53-81); BG reinforcement: Marxist criticism, ideology
Week 4
T Sept 17 Tyson, “Lesbian, Gay, and Queer Criticism” (317-357): BG reinforcement: gender criticism, queer theory
R Sept 19 Tyson, “Reader Response Criticism” (169-207); BG reinforcement: reader-response criticism, implied author, implied reader. Library resources quiz due no later than midnight tonight.
Week 5
T Sept 24 Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: 1-51; BG: Victorian Period
R Sept 26 Carroll, Alice: 52-97
Week 6
T Oct 1 Carroll, “Humpty Dumpty,” from Through the Looking Glass, 157-167; Avery, “Fairy-Tales for Pleasure” (313-15)
R Oct 3 Norton Alice: “The Letters of Lewis Carroll, 1840-1857” (251-54), “The Letters…1864-1885” (268-71), “The Letters…1868-1897” (284-89); “Alice’s Recollections” (265-68); “Dodgson’s Friendships with Women” (295-97); “An Old Bachelor” (299-303)
Week 7
T Oct 8 Tyson, “Deconstructive Criticism” (249-280); BG reinforcement: deconstruction, jouissance
R Oct 10 Meet in Simpson Library for session on library research skills; Essay #1 due in Canvas by midnight
Week 8
T Oct 15 Fall Break
R Oct 17 Tyson, “New Historical and Cultural Criticism” (277-315); BG reinforcement: cultural criticism/cultural studies, new historicism
Week 9
T Oct 22 Ruhl, Passion Play: Part One; BG: Postmodern Period, postmodernism, aside, chorus
R Oct 24 Ruhl: Part Two; BG: performative
Week 10
T Oct 29 Ruhl: Part Three; BG: mystery play
R Oct 31 Ruhl and Tyson, “Postcolonial Criticism” (417-449); BG reinforcement: postcolonial literature/postcolonial theory
Week 11
T Nov 5 Tyson, “Feminist Criticism” (83-133); BG reinforcement: gender, feminist criticism, patriarchal
R Nov 7 Tretheway, Native Guard: “Theories of Time and Space” (1) and Part I (3-15): BG: figure of speech, stanza, end-stopped line, enjambment, caesura, couplet, quatrain, sestet, octave
Week 12
T Nov 12 Tretheway, Native Guard: “Pilgrimage” (19-20); “Scenes from a Documentary History of Mississippi” (21-24); BG: alliteration, assonance, consonance, dissonance, rhyme, half rhyme. Essay #2 due in Canvas by midnight
R Nov 14 Tyson, “African American Criticism” (359-415); Tretheway; BG: prosody, free verse, meter, foot, scansion, dactyl, iamb, pyrrhic, spondee, trochee, anapest, pentameter, blank verse, common meter
Week 13
T Nov 19 Tretheway, Native Guard: “Native Guard” (25-30); “Again, the Fields” (31); BG: sonnet, sonnet sequence
R Nov 21 Tretheway, Native Guard: Part III (33-46)
Week 14
T Nov 26 Tretheway
R Nov 28 Thanksgiving Break
Week 15
T Dec 3 Collaborative group work. Essay #3 due in Canvas by midnight.
R Dec 5 Collaborative group work.
►►► F Dec 6 Collaborative Articles due by midnight ◄◄◄
Group Presentations on Collaborative Articles will be given during the Final Exam Periods:
section 05: Thursday, December 12, 8:30-11:00
section 06: Tuesday, December 10, 12:00-2:30