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