This
course provides a broad overview to critical/theoretical approaches for
interpreting a variety of texts, in particular “literary” ones, like fiction
and poetry, but other cultural productions as well, such as films and popular
songs. Central concepts for studying texts–rhetoric, poetics, aesthetics,
ideology, representation, performance, globalization, post-colonialism–will
serve as focal points for discussion. Because theory without practice resembles
learning to swim by watching film of people swimming, we will read short
primary texts, which will be sites for applying theories as well as sources for
essay topics.
REQUIRED TEXTS
Jonathan Culler:
Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction.
Alani Apio: Kamau
Ernest Hemingway:
In Our Time [excerpts]
R. Zamora
Linmark: Rolling the R’s [excerpts]
Mark Twain:
Pudd’nhead Wilson
William
Shakespeare: Twelfth Night
Plus PDFs of critical
essays.
RECOMMENDED
MLA Style Manual
and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, 7th ed. New York: Modern Language
Association of America, 2009.
ASSIGNMENTS
In addition to a
mid-term and final, students will write short summaries, short response papers,
and two essays.
STUDENT LEARNING
OUTCOMES
Students finishing the class will be more aware of the
complexities of reading and thus be able to identify and foreground different
reading strategies; will better understand the processes of interpretation;
will become more confident about reading and discussing theory; will become
familiar with the history of theory; will become more adept at integrating the
steps required to write a critical essay that employs theory.