ENGLISH 391: LITERARY CRITICISM
Dr. Kuzmanovich
Place:
Chambers 3155
Office:
e-mail:
zokuzmanovich@davidson.edu
COURSE
DESCRIPTION: This course has three objectives: (1) to provide the historical
background for a discussion
of some major issues in contemporary literary study; (2) to
examine comparatively a number of documents of practical and theoretical
criticism addressing those issues; and (3) to give the students (and the professor)
a forum for identifying and discussing their own assumptions about the
methodology, value, and consequences of literary criticism.
REQUIREMENTS
OF TEMPERAMENT: MOTHER WIT (ability to
sense a challenging problem and brood over it all the while recognizing that
fifteen weeks may not be long enough to brood un-reductively on anything),
SKILL (to navigate your way through the library, the internet, and the not-too
predictable class dynamics), TIME (to browse unhurriedly at what at first may
appear peripheral, to write carefully and revise frequently), SPACE (a quiet
place to work away from telephones, televisions, e-mail pings, and other
distractions), and DISCIPLINE (to read all of these pages of often dry prose
and not give up or set the course on “coast”).
FORMAT: In
most of my classes I tend to lecture in the early part of the course and then
have either structured (student-run) or free-for-all discussions. But even during those discussions, I tend to
reserve about 10 minutes for myself. On
days when you are responsible for structuring the discussion, you will spend 25
minutes of your time identifying and discussing the relevant practical issues
raised by the readings. The rest
(usually 15 minutes) would be devoted to the discussion of the protocol
exercise for that day. On days when you
are “teaching” the class, you’ll be responsible for providing discussion
prompts. A prompt summarizes the
salient points of the essays read, provides definitions of key terms, connects the points and the
terms meaningfully to the claims and concepts of other works, supplies the
class with the best and worst case examples, and then delivers your
reaction. No matter the pedagogical
method you use, though, you will need to give the rest of the class at least equal
time. You will need to consult with me
at least two class periods prior to the day you get to teach.
CAVEAT: It
is imperative that you stay up on your reading, take notes, make connections,
and ask questions.
To help
you decide if you have understood the reading, try to address yourself
COMPARATIVELY to the following five questions: (1) what does each
writer/theorist propose as specifically literary qualities of the texts he or
she uses as examples? In other words, what would his/her answer be to the
questions: (1) "What is (good) literature? What is not literature?"
(2) What role is assigned to language? (3) What does the theorist propose as
the true relation between the author and the text? Author and
the reader? Author and the world? Author and other
authors? (4) Of what good is literature
to the reader, that is, what role does literature play in human happiness? (5) What relations are said to obtain between
the text and (social, historical, gendered, ethnic, that is, “minded”)
reality? I am happy to chat in my office
or by e-mail about any issue, but as you will find out, my comments usually
come in the form of questions meant to lead you to identify your operating
assumptions as you read. This tactic may
be frustrating for you initially, but if you are lucky it will become second
nature.
PAPERS: The best kinds of papers are those that
succinctly make accessible not only your understanding of particular works but
also your reflections on the cultural forces and personal predilections that
shape those works and your understanding of those works. In other words, though
I do not care what critical approach you claim or think innate, methodological
self-awareness needs to join, suffuse, and justify theoretically the kinds of
literary analysis you practice routinely.
"The skill developed from constant practice in the direct experience of
literature is a special skill, like playing the piano, not the expression of a
general attitude to life, like singing in the shower."
Northrop Frye
“The only thing infinite is our capacity for self-deception.”
Internet
Signature
GRADING:
Your final grade will be based on class participation, prompts, discussion
leading (33%), tests,
quizzes, exams (34%), and a paper or project (33%). All assignments are in bold print on the
syllabus. While the reading assignments on the syllabus may and most likely
will change, the structure and due dates of written assignments will not
without event of apocalyptic magnitude.
Unless you notify me in advance, I expect you to be in class. You will be docked for excessive (more than
three) unexcused absences. The college requires that I fail you if you miss one
fourth of your classes.
PLEASE
NOTE: If this large class should turn, by the Friday of Week Two, into a
smaller class, the readings, the requirements and the percentages may change.
TEXTS:
Vincent Leitch,
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism
Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction
David
Lodge, Small World
Vladimir
Nabokov, Pale Fire
Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics
SECONDARY
POEMS: Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy
Mistress," John Milton's "Lycidas," Emily Dickinson's "My Life had
stood-a Loaded Gun-," William Butler Yeats' "Sailing to
Byzantium," Wallace Stevens's "Not Ideas About the Thing but the
Thing Itself," Amy Clampitt’s “Discovery,” John Donne’s “The
Canonization,”
SHORT STORIES: Hawthorne's "The
Birthmark" and "Young Goodman Brown," Edgar Allan Poe's
"The Purloined Letter," William Faulkner's "A Rose for
Emily," Katharine Mansfield’s “Bliss,” Flannery O'Connor's "Revelation,"
Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno” and “Bartelby,” Vladimir Nabokov’s
“Signs and Symbols” and “The Vane Sisters,” Margaret Atwood’s “Rape Fantasies,”
John Cheever’s “Reunion,” Ernest Hemingway's "A
Very Short Story" and “Hills Like White Elephants,” Joyce Carol
Oates' "Where Are You Going; Where Have You Been?"
NOVELS: Joseph Conrad's Heart of
Darkness, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn, Kate Chopin's The Awakening, Charles Dickens’s Great
Expectations, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, William Faulkner’s The
Sound and the Fury, Tony Morrison’s Beloved, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Henry
James’s Turn of the Screw, Virginia Woolf’s To
the Lighthouse
PLAYS: Shakespeare's Hamlet, Othello, and
King Lear, Marsha
Norman's 'night, Mother, Stoppard’s
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Jumpers, Susan Glaspell’s Trifles
FILMS: Blow Up, The Conversation, The
Piano, Psycho, Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Cane, American Beauty,
Blade Runner, Blue Velvet, Memento, The Usual Suspects, Pulp Fiction,
Stagecoach, Underground
A Few Words on Teaching Literature
This is the kind of answer I give
to myself when I ask myself why I teach literature: If language is a window
into other minds, then literature is a peculiar kind of a structure preserving
and creating both the windows and the views those windows grant. As a unique
repository of a culture's riches, literature provides one of the few imaginary
spaces where minds can really meet. Read properly, the passions and
preoccupations of other minds immerse us in diverse views of human experience
while helping to frame our unique knowledge of ourselves in the world. But such knowledge arrives only through the
discipline we must impose on our thoughts and feelings in order for them to be
expressed precisely and thus made present to others. Expressing ourselves well
means making it possible for our audience to sense in our every sentence both
the resonances of our race, gender, region, class, religion, ethnicity, sexual
preference, and political ideology as well as the distinctive independence of
our individual spirit's synthesis of, and reaction to those cultural forces.
Keep reminding yourself that through your every word and image you not merely
express but produce what you think. And
then, if such reminders do not silence you, treat your audience to the full
complexity of your historical perspective, the breadth of you cultural
literacy, the sharpness of your interpretive acumen, the richness of your
understanding of the imaginative process, and thus the lucid pleasure inherent in
any task done precisely and passionately. Yes, it's scary, but I can't imagine
doing anything else with as much commitment.
Plagiary occurs whenever you present another writer’s work in such a
way as to give your
reader reason to think it to be your own. Plagiarism is a form of
academic fraud, and it always leads to a failing grade for the plagiarized
work, but may, depending on Honor Council decisions, also result in a loss of
credit for the course, for the semester, temporary suspension from the College,
etc.
The most common types of plagiarism are:
1. “Let Mikey Do It!” This is the grossest form of plagiarism since
it includes the use of a paper purchased from a paper mill, or a work prepared
by any person other than the individual claiming to be the author such as a
paper stolen from another student or acquired from the fraternity or eating
house archives. (I usually ask for
temporary suspension from the College.)
2. “The Double-Dip.” Self-plagiarism occurs when you submit work which
is the same or substantially the same as work for which you have already
received academic credit here or elsewhere. (I usually ask for loss of credit
for the class.)
3. “Gee, I wish I had written that!
Wait a minute; I just did!” Incorporating into your
own sentences the happily phrased words written or said by another but failing
to put the quotation marks around those “happy” words and thus avoiding having
to credit your source. (I usually fail the paper, but will fail the
student for the class if I receive no cooperation in ascertaining the degree of
infraction. The Honor Council may and
usually does add its own penalties for this kinf of Plagiphrasis.”) If
you are writing something heavily allusive, or have the expectation that your
readers share your level of cultural literacy, check with me first just to be
on the safe side.
The College values and rewards original thought, but it also values
and rewards proper research which requires the correct crediting of authorities
from whom you derive your phrasing, facts, and opinions.
Every discipline within the curriculum requires documentation, but
correct method of attribution varies from discipline to discipline. I require
the latest MLA
style (usually posted on the Web) for which you have already been supplied the
URL. (this year it’s
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~expos/sources/#textboxes)
If you are ever in any doubt about what to document, please ask me,
but until you do, surprise the devil and do the right thing: document absolutely everything.
A Few Words on Grading
Your final grade will never be lower than the arithmetical average of
your in-course grades; it may be higher if you writing and discussing shows
notable improvement. Although all grading is to some degree subjective, I want
to clue you in on what my particular criteria are. I am convinced that written
assignments help you to develop and clarify your understanding of a text, thus
giving you a firmer grasp of it than reading, lecture, or discussion can
provide. What I look for in your writing are the following elements. Words like
sense and feeling hint at the subjectivity; remember, however, that I am a
trained reader and that these criteria are constants for everyone in this
class.
--a sense that you have understood and considered
all aspects of the assignment and have something interesting to say in response
to it (rather than answering the obvious questions or latching on to something
already trodden over in lecture and discussion)
--depth of understanding of the work under discussion
(considering evidence which might be interpreted quite differently from the way
you read it, anticipating those objections and fending them off rather than
conveniently forgetting about them; appropriate details brought forth to
convince me of your contention; citations, always with page numbers, thoroughly
interpreted and commented upon)
--a feeling (very early in your response to the
assignment) of some insightful point being made and of the method you plan to
use in demonstrating that point (the more I have to guess what it is you are
getting at, the more you'll have to wonder about your grade; mystery has a
better place on late-night television)
--a sense that you have profited from doing the
assignment itself, a new insight perhaps, usually evident in a conclusion which
does not merely summarize but speculates, conjectures, surmises, theorizes,
meditates, ponders, reflects, ruminates (yes, I use a thesaurus and so should
you) or gives other indication of an ongoing engagement with the text at hand
--rhetorical awareness: when you write for me, you
write for an interested and sympathetic but also skeptical reader. To convince
me that you are making the best possible case for your reading, assume an
authoritative interested tone (achieved through precise propositions which are
qualified where necessary and through a consideration of other points of view);
carefully selected and contextualized citations; coherent exposition and
sufficient development of your insight gained by clear transitions between
sentences and paragraphs; fair use of outside materials in observance of the
honor code.
NB: I am distressed and irritated
by carelessness in handling of logic, grammar, and textual evidence, and, as a
result, every time I have to correct something, your grade is affected
accordingly. For me, teaching provides a type of satisfaction no other activity
can provide, so I care about all aspects of it, including your writing. I hope
you will care about it as much as I do. I applaud good intentions, encourage aspiration,
and value hard work, but I reward only achievement.
LETTERS AND NUMBERS: Letter grades will be converted
to numerical ones according to the following scale:
A = 95; A- = 92; B+ = 88; B = 85; B- = 82; C+ = 78; C =
75; C- = 72; D+ = 68; D = 65.
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DAY |
DATE |
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WORK DUE |
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M |
1/12 |
Methods and Goals of the
Course; Terminology; An End Run Through 2500 Years of Criticism |
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The Ancient Ancestors and Rumbles
vs. Them |
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All *ed
items are in the Norton Anthology |
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W |
1/14 |
*PLATO; from Republic Bk
10, Ion, Phaedrus: 1-29; 33-49; 67-86 |
Read
“The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges and draw it on a single 8.5X11
sheet |
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F |
1/16 |
*ARISTOTLE, Poetics: 86-117;
EAGLETON, What is Literature (1-15) |
Your
drawing of the Borges Library due |
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M |
1/19 |
No Class |
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W |
1/21 |
*SMITH, Contingencies of Value:
1910-1932; *TOMPKINS, Me and My Shadow:
2126-2143 |
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F |
1/23 |
*LONGINUS, On the Sublime:
135-155 *BURKE, From A Philosophical
Inquiry…: 536-550 |
Protocol
Exercise Due |
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M |
1/26 |
*DANTE ALIGHIERI, Letter to Can
Grande, della Scala: 251-253;
*SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, An Apology for Poetry: 323-363 |
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The Modern Precursors |
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W |
1/28 |
*ALEXANDER
POPE, An Essay on Criticism: 438-458; *SAMUEL JOHNSON, from the
Preface to Shakespeare and On Metaphysical Wit: 468-483; *IMMANUEL KANT, from Critique of
Judgment: 499-536; |
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F |
1/31 |
*SAMUEL
TAYLOR COLERIDGE, from Biographia Literaria,
especially Ch. 13: 668-672; 674-682 |
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M |
2/2 |
JOHN
KEATS, from Letters (on Electronic Reserve); *PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, From A
Defense of Poetry: 695-717; *EMERSON, The Poet: 724-739 |
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W |
2/4 |
EAGLETON,
The Rise of English (15-47); *T.S.
*ELIOT, Tradition and the Individual Talent; The Metaphysical Poets:
1088-1105 |
Protocol #1 Bates |
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Formalism and New Criticism |
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F |
2/6 |
*Boris Eichenbaum, From "The Theory of “The Formal
Method": 1058-1088; *MIKHAIL
BAKHTIN, From Discourse in the Novel: 1186-1220 |
Protocol #2 Fry |
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M |
2/9 |
* |
Protocol #3 Sims |
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Structuralism and Semiotics |
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W |
2/11 |
EAGLETON,
Structuralism and Semiotics; *FRYE, The
Archetypes of Literature: 1442-1457 |
Protocol #4 Martin |
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*Roman Jakobson, From Linguistics and
Poetics, Two Aspects of Language: 1254-1269; |
Protocol #5 Lewis |
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F |
2/13 |
No Class |
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M |
2/16 |
No Class |
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T |
2/17 |
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Mini-Paper Due |
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Marxism and its Offspring |
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W |
2/18 |
*G. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of the
Spirit: 626-636; *Karl Marx, selections, especially
from Grundrisse,
The German Ideology, The Communist
Manifesto: 759-789; |
Protocol #6 Ahearn |
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F |
2/20 |
*BENJAMIN,
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: 1163-1186; *HORKHEIMER AND aDORNO, Dialectic of Enlightenment: 1220-1240; |
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M |
2/23 |
*Louis Althusser, From "Ideology
and Ideological State Apparatuses":
1476-1509; |
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W |
2/24 |
Exam 1 |
Exam 1 |
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Reader Response Criticism |
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F |
2/27 |
EAGLETON,
47-79; Start |
Protocol #7 Wagner |
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SPRING
BREAK |
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M |
3/8 |
*FISH,
Interpreting the Variorum: 2067-2089 |
Protocol #8 Ruble |
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W |
3/10 |
*WOLFGANG
ISER, Interaction Between Text and Reader: 1670-1682; *SARTRE, What is
Literature? 1333-1350 |
Protocol #9 Walsh |
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F |
3/12 |
*BARTHES,
The Death of the Author, From Work to Text: 1457-1461, 1466-1476; *FOUCAULT,
What is an Author: 1615-1636 |
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Psychoanalysis |
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M |
3/15 |
*Freud, The
Interpretation of Dreams; The Uncanny, Fetishism: 913-952; EAGLETON, Psychoanalysis |
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W |
3/17 |
*LACAN,
The Mirror Stage; The Signification of the Phallus: 1278-1290, 1302-1311-2193 |
Protocol #10 Hanson |
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F |
3/19 |
*BLOOM, The Anxiety of Influence:
1794-1809; *MULVEY, Visual Pleasure
and Narrative Cinema: 2179-2193 |
Protocol #11 Byars |
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Feminisms |
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M |
3/22 |
MOI,
1-41; *DE BEAUVOIR, The Second Sex: 1403-1415; |
Protocol #12 Puckett |
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W |
3/24 |
MOI,
42-88; Look up all references Toril MOI makes to
JACQUES LACAN’s theory of “The Mirror Stage”
in SEXUAL/TEXTUAL POLITICS (but at least read 91-101???? ); |
Protocol #13 Thompson |
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F |
3/26 |
*CIXOUS,
The Laugh of the Medusa: 2035-2056; *KOLODNY,
Dancing through the Minefield; *KRISTEVA,
Revolution in Poetic Language: 2143-2179 |
Protocol #14 Shelnutt |
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Post- |
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M |
3/29 |
*JEAN
BAUDRILLARD, From the Precession of the Simulacra: 1729-1741; *NIETZSCHE, On
Truth and Lying…: 870-884;
HABERMAS, …Public Sphere… ,
Modernity—An Incomplete Project: 1741-1741-1759; *BOURDIEU 1806-1815 |
Protocol #15 Entrekin |
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W |
3/31 |
*FOUCAULT,
Selections 1636-1670; *LYOTARD, Defining the Post-modern: 1609-1615 |
Protocol #16 Whitman |
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F |
4/1 |
*DERRIDA,
Selections: 1815-1877; SOKAL, Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a
Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" |
Protocol #17 Nick |
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M |
4/5 |
EAGLETON,
Post-Structuralism |
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New Historicism and Cultural
Studies |
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W |
4/7 |
*HALL,
Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies: 1895-1910; *KNAPP AND
MICHAELS, Against Theory: 2548-2475; *BORDO, Unbearable Weight…: 2360-2377 |
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F |
4/9 |
No Class |
Start Reading Lodge |
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M |
4/12 |
No Class |
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W |
4/14 |
*HARAWAY,
A Manifesto for Cyborgs; *SAID,
Orientalism: 1896-2012; |
Protocol #18 |
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Race, Ethnicity, Post-Colonial
Studies |
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F |
4/16 |
*FANON,
From The Pitfalls of National Consciousness: 1575-1587; *ACHEBE, An Image of |
Protocol #19 Finn |
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M |
4/19 |
*GATES,
Talking Black: 2421-2432 |
Protocol #20 Koernke |
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W |
4/21 |
*hOOKS, Postmodern Blackness: 2475-2485 *ANZALDUA, Borderlands: 2208-2223 |
Protocol #21 Nakahara |
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Queer Theory, Performativity |
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F |
4/23 |
*J.L. *RICH, Compulsory Hetereosexuality
and Lesbian Existence: 1759-1781 |
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M |
4/26 |
* |
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What’s Next? The Return of the Repressed Reader and the Rhapsode Teacher? |
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W |
4/28 |
*BHABHA,
The Commitment to Theory: 2377-2398; EAGLETON, Political Criticism |
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F |
4/30 |
*NGUGI,
et al., On the Abolition of the
English Department: 2089-2097; *GRAFF,
Taking Cover in Coverage: 2056-2067 |
Finish
Reading Lodge |
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M |
5/3 |
LODGE, SMALL
WORLD |
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W |
5/5 |
EXAM 2 |
Exam 2 |
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R |
5/6 |
READING
DAY |
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F |
5/7 |
FINAL
EXAMS BEGIN |
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M |
5/10 |
Seniors
must complete finals by |
Paper
2/Project Due by |
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W |
5/12 |
FINAL
EXAMS END |
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