2:30p-3:45p TR (30) 3 cr

PREREQUISITE: L202 NOTE : The English Department will strictly enforce this prerequisite. Students who have not completed L202 will have their registration in L371administratively cancelled effective Friday, 25 August.

This course will be organized around a set of critical terms such as Formalism, Marxism, Feminism, Post-Structuralism, Post-Colonialism, and Transnationalism. Rather than provide an exhaustive survey of critical theory, we will concern ourselves with investigating the ways in which these critical approaches conceptualize the relationship between narrative, on the one hand, and history, on the other. In addition to analyzing the conceptions of representation underwriting our readings, we will contextualize them within the history of contemporary literary theory and social movements. Throughout the course, we will ask: what is the connection between representation in the mimetic sense delineated by Aristotle and political representation in the public sphere? And what sorts of ethical, moral, and political responsibilities are attendant on being an intellectual today? We will approach individual readings systematically by inquiring how each text: 1) defines its object of investigation, 2) organizes its argument by ascertaining its key critical terms, its structure, and the kinds of evidence it employs, 3) contains conceptual gaps which cannot be elaborated within the terms of the argument. A tentative list of partial readings includes works by the following writers: Aijaz Ahmad, M.H. Abrams, Erich Auerbach, Jenny Bourne, Jacques Derrida, Terry Eagleton, Susan Faludi, Frantz Fanon, John Guillory, Fredric Jameson, James Kavanaugh, Catherine MacKinnon, Karl Marx, Masao Miyoshi, Paula Moya, Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Robyn Wiegman, and Raymond Williams. As part of our course materials, we will also read some poetry, short stories, and view some films and television programs.

Students should expect to write two papers–one 3-4 page paper and one 10-12 page paper–and to take a midterm and final exam.