“Literature” in the classic sense claimed the power to teach and
to please; at the same time, it recurrently needed to defend itself against
charges (as in the many “Defenses of Literature”) that it mislead readers, or reproduced
unequal social relations, or was cut off from social relevance. Today literary forms
and functions are being transformed by alternative modes of expression (sonic,
visual) and expanded conceptions of genre and value. In the context of ecological
crisis as something that might “change everything,” institutional restructuring,
and the call to outreach and activism, questions about the value, power, and
politics of literature surface in urgently new forms.
In asking how literary methodologies remain relevant, we will
survey key words and concepts for literary study (aesthetics, ideology);
consider examples of how these have been engaged within literary theories
(formalist, historicist/materialist, culturalist); reflect on how these terms
and schools gain or lose traction in contemporary movements (critical race,
alter-globalizing, indigenous); and consider the critical functions that
“location” plays in literary studies, particularly in the context of settler
colonialism. Theoretical texts will be discussed alongside (or applied to)
creative ones. All along we will be concerned with how critical approaches help
to light up aspects of texts, potentially enriching our arts/acts of reading
and sharpening our senses of the stakes and consequences of interpretations. The
course aims to engage issues important to situating one’s work within literary
studies, including questions of how “literary studies” relates to other
concentrations in English Studies and affiliated disciplines. We
will be concerned as well with how one does advanced research in literary
studies, and how one presents one’s findings.
REQUIRED
READING: William Kennedy, Ironweed; another novel TBA
Much of the course reading will be available on
Laulima: this may include short stories (James Baldwin, Gretel Erdrich, Witi
Ihimaera, Piilani Kaluaikoolau, Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl, Vladimir Nabokov, Annie
Prouxl), poems (Pablo Neruda, Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, Russell Soaba, Haunani-Kay
Trask), personal essays (Martin Espada, Eduardo Galeano, Dennis Kawaharada,
Adrienne Rich, John Pule), and critical and theoretical essays (Louis
Althusser, Benedict Anderson, Gloria Anzandua, Derrek Attridge, Mikhail
Bakhtin, Walter Benjamin, Homi Bhabha, Judith Butler, Michael de Certeau, Vine
Deloria, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Sigmund
Freud, Eduardo Galeano, Henry Louis Gates, Epeli Hau’ofa, Kuualoha
Hoomanawanui, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacques
Ranciere, Edward Said, Leslie Marmon Silko, Ngugi wa Thiango, Albert Wendt,
Raymond Williams, Slavoj Zizek).
ASSIGNMENTS:
–. An oral report in class about a critical term
and/or essay
–. Two shorts essays (five pages); one will apply a
theoretical approach to a literary text; the other will provide the basis for a
short presentation at the annual 625 conference, in which students from all 625
sections present on a common theme.
–. Periodic online postings
–. An abstract and a conference-length paper to be
presented to the class
Student
Learning Outcomes:
–.
General knowledge of theories and methodologies of literary studies and how
they have changed over time
–.
Ability to position arguments within critical traditions
–.
Preparation to engage in advanced research
–.
Preparation for presenting work (oral and written)
–.
Sense of the importance of “location” to literary study