ENGL 578

Spring 2013

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Seminar Lit &Other Disciplines
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Credit: 4 hours.

May be repeated if topics vary. Prerequisite: One year of graduate study of literature or consent of instructor.

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CRN Type Section Time Day Location Instructor Section Details
39658
Lecture-Discussion
G
3:00PM -4:50PM
M
1068 Lincoln Hall
Michelson, B
Part of Term:
1
Date Range:
01/14/13-05/01/13
Section Title:
The Mind Sciences
Section Info:
Topic Section G: The Mind Sciences and Modern Cultural Response This seminar will focus on the impact?in modern literary texts and other varieties of imaginative production?of discoveries, disruptive new formulations, and paradigm shifts related to assumptions about the mind, the nature of thinking, the foundations of consciousness and the self. Basic objectives: ?To review briefly some influential pronouncements about these subjects, from c.1800 forward through the dawn of psychology and neuroscience as systematic studies. We will read and discuss salient passages from Hegel, Coleridge, Fichte, Schlegel, Marx, and others, including formulations that continue to subtend, or haunt, literary production and cultural criticism. ?To read and discuss key moments from the close of the 19th century onward in which powerful new ideas about consciousness?valid, dubious, or outright pernicious?impact not only therapy and racial and gender politics but also literary movements and significant American and British authors. ?To look carefully at how recent hypotheses and ?viral? narratives and myths about the brain and the mind are manifesting in contemporary literature, popular culture, and critical response. ?To work together to develop publishable essays intervening in this conversation. It is a fact that close to ninety percent of scholars who complete doctoral work in the humanities never publish anything beyond the completion of the doctoral thesis. To strengthen your chances of entering the profession and becoming a recognized scholar, it?s a very good idea to join the ?ten percent? as soon as you have something fresh and well-written to contribute; and these evolving controversies about the mind sciences and what they will mean for the humanities are open to you for exploration from many possible directions. My intention is to work with students in the development of these projects, and to include useful sessions on key differences between a good seminar paper and the kind of document that can find acceptance in a respectable journal. Readings will include work from William James, Henry James, Kate Chopin, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frank Norris, D. H. Lawrence, Paul Broks, Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennett, Richard Powers, Dan Lloyd, and films by Christopher Nolan and others.
Restriction(s):
Restricted to Graduate - Urbana-Champaign.
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