ENGL 301

Fall 2016 Part of Term 1

Part of Term 1
Aug 22-Dec 7

CriticalApproaches to Lit&Text

SHOW FINAL EXAM SCHEDULE

Credit: 3 hours.

Introduction to influential critical methods and to the multiple frameworks for interpretation as illustrated by the intensive analysis of selected texts. For majors only.

Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement and ENGL 200.

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ENGL 301 class schedule data for fall 2016
CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
50625	Lecture-Discussion	E	1:00PM -1:50PM	MWF	English Building	Hansen, J	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/22/16-12/07/16 Section Info: This course will introduce students to the various issues and debates central to contemporary literary studies. If you have ever wondered why people interpret certain texts, and even certain events and actions, as they do, then this is the course for you. The class will begin by exploring the ways in which three profoundly different thinkers, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, introduced a peculiarly suspicious form of reading, a way of interrogating texts and the world that looks beneath the surface and doubts that what you see is what you get. We will go on to explore how literary critics in the 20th century worked to map this Modern “hermeneutic of suspicion” onto political, psychological, and philosophical issues that still have an effect on us today. Finally, the course will engage with literature’s relationship to questions of sexual and racial difference, of power, and of technology. Requirements will include active class-participation, weekly journal entries, two short papers, and two exams. Texts will include Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, Marx’s The Communist Manifesto, Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals and a Course Packet with essays by critics in the Gender, psychoanalytic, Marxist, and Post-Structuralist traditions. It is strongly recommended that all English and Teaching of English majors take ENGL 300 and ENGL 301 BEFORE taking any other 300- or 400-level courses. Restriction(s): Restricted to English major(s) or minor(s).
54605	Lecture-Discussion	Q	12:30PM -1:45PM	TR	English Building	Parker, R	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/22/16-12/07/16 Section Info: “How to Interpret Literature: An Introduction to Contemporary Critical Theory.” This course is required for English literature majors and is best not delayed for too long. Seniors usually regret not taking it sooner. Literature students write, think, and speak literary criticism, and this course sets out to make that process more interesting and—eventually—more fun. In the last half century, critics have repeatedly reinvented literary and cultural criticism in ways that can deeply influence how we interpret what we read and how we understand our daily lives. We will study such critical movements as new criticism, structuralism and narratology, deconstruction and poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, feminism, queer studies, Marxism, new historicism, cultural studies, critical race theory, postcolonial studies, disability studies, and ecocriticism. Expect some difficult reading, but we will work through it together. This course prepares students for future literature classes, and more to the point, it helps us understand and question the world around us and the entire project of critical thinking and reading. Attendance will be crucial, for we learn these concepts both by reading and by working with the concepts together. If you like to stay silent in class, or if you do not attend class regularly, then do not take this section. Class time will focus on discussion, not on lecture, so you need to be there in the room and in the discussion. It is strongly recommended that all English and Teaching of English majors take ENGL 300 and ENGL 301 BEFORE taking any other 300- or 400-level courses. Restriction(s): Restricted to English major(s) or minor(s).
50626	Lecture-Discussion	S	2:00PM -3:15PM	TR	English Building	Nazar, H	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/22/16-12/07/16 Section Info: This course invites reflection on what we do when we read and write about literature. Is there something distinctive about literary language and the experience of reading literary texts? What is the difference between a newspaper narrative and a short story? How do we compare different interpretations of a poem? Does the study of literature have any relevance outside the academy? English 301 explores these and related questions and considers some of the most influential responses they have received in the last seventy years or so, from critical schools including the New Criticism, feminism, Marxism, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, postcolonialism, the New Historicism, and the new formalisms. The course prepares you to engage, more thoughtfully, the scholarship that you draw upon when you write research papers for literature classes. It also gives you the tools to articulate and defend your own interpretive approach to literature and culture. It is strongly recommended that all English and Teaching of English majors take ENGL 300 and ENGL 301 BEFORE taking any other 300- or 400-level courses. Restriction(s): Restricted to English major(s) or minor(s).