L202 9937 LITERARY INTERPRETATION
Margo Natalie Crawford

PREREQUISITE: Completion of the English composition requirement.

TOPIC: “Literary Analysis and Ethnic Studies”

4:00p-5:15p TR (25 students) 3 cr., A&H, IW.

Open to majors and declared minors only.

This course is an introduction to both literary studies and ethnic studies. As we focus on the range of questions that shape literary studies, we will begin with a study of Shakespeare's The Tempest and a review of the trajectory of interpretations of this play. Our study of this range of interpretations will unveil the different approaches that literary critics use. As we progress, we will continue to consider the different questions at the heart of different approaches to literary criticism. An introduction to literary interpretation will become inseparable from the introduction to ethnic studies. Our close readings of literary texts will be situated within questions about culture, race, gender, class, and sexuality. We will compare novels and short stories that have been placed within literary traditions coded as Native American, Chicana/o, Asian American, Anglo-American, and African American. Our texts may include Literary Theory: The Basics, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race, Three Lives, Reservation Blues, The Subterraneans, The Woman Warrior, Paradise, Woman Hollering Creek, and Brown: The Last Discovery of America.

Three essays will be assigned. There will also be a final exam. The course will integrate lectures and discussion.