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Dr.
David Clippinger English
482 Office
LB 115
MTWTF
9:00 to 1:00 Phone
724-773-3884
16 June through 27 June 2003 e-mail
dwc8@psu.edu
Office Hours: By appointment
English 482 "Making it New":
Literature and its Critical Readers
Overview: In this two week course, we will review the major schools of literary
interpretation and explore the most significant developments in
literary theory over the last fifty years including structuralist,
post-structuralist, and post-colonial theories. Our goal in the
course will be to hone our understanding of theoretical approaches
to literature and to trace how these approaches have impacted
how literature is defined and conceived. By using a number of novels, short stories,
and poems as the touchstones, we will apply various theoretical
approaches to these literary works.
More, in an effort to enhance our understanding of the
literary theory and literature as a whole, the course will be
driven by the "practice"
of literary theory-its application as interpretative strategies
and as ways of making literature come alive both in and out of
the classroom. In this regard, this course will offer insight
into how to approach the field of literature and how to teach
literature as a significant rejoinder to contemporary culture.
The course has been designed especially for educators and
with a pedagogical focus that introduces fresh approaches to literature
as well as possible curricular sequences and assignments. For the focus of the course, we will read
a number of “classic” literary works as well as how
various critics have responded to and interpreted those works.
Possible texts under consideration for the course are critical
editions of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, James Joyce’s The Dead, Chinua Achebe’s Things
Fall Apart, as well as some short stories and poems. In addition, the course will draw extensively
upon an anthology of contemporary theory, The Critical Tradition. Each of the literary works under consideration
have been selected since they are used frequently in high school
curriculums, and many of those enrolled in the course may already
be familiar with these works and/or their authors.
Subsequently, it will be expected that all of the literary
works will be read before the class begins in June.
Required
Texts: All texts are available at the Penn State
campus bookstore.
Chinua
Achebe, Things Fall Apart Henry
James, The Turn of the Screw,
Norton Critical Edition, Second Edition James
Joyce, The Dead, Norton Critical Edition David H. Richter, The Critical Tradition, Second Edition
Course Requirements and Grades: The final grade for the course will be determined according to your performance on the following assignments:
2 Presentations 20% 4 Position Papers on topic of choice (2 Pages) 20% Final Project 40% (Curriculum Project 12+ pages) Participation 20%
Final grades are based on the following distribution
of points: A
93-100% C+ 77-79% A-
90-92% C 70-76% B+
87-89% D 60-69% B
83-86% F 0-59% B-
80-82%
Attendance: Since the course builds upon itself, it would be in your best interest not to miss any classes, and it will be impossible for a student to comprehend the materials of the class with more than one absence.
Format for Presentations:
1. Presentations will be 20 minutes long with a question and answer component to be included in the final five minutes 2. The presentation should use images—photographs, handouts, charts, and the like—in order to enhance the class comprehension of the literary works. 3. The core objective of the presentation is to present an overview of the theoretical approach and apply that approach to the literary work at hand. 4. The grade for the presentation will be determined by the quality of the material covered as well as the delivery of that material.
Format for Papers: 1. The paper must be typed and double-spaced in a 12 point font with one-inch margins on the left, right, top, and bottom of the page. 2. Two copies of the paper must be turned in. 3. The paper should be stapled in the upper-left hand corner and the name and page number should appear on every page in the upper right-hand corner; e.g., see the top of the next page. 4. As needed, all papers will use MLA format for citations and works cited page.
Late Papers: Late work will not be accepted unless arrangements have been made with me in advance. The paper is due at the beginning of class.
Office Hours: I would encourage you to visit me during office hours so that we can have an opportunity to talk individually. Such meetings help me to better help you, but it also demonstrates your commitment to your education. Some conference dates may be scheduled throughout the semester (see syllabus for dates), but the more active a role you take in your education, the more beneficial and relevant this course will be to you.
Writing Center: The writing center, located in the basement of the General Classroom Building (1 GCB), is an invaluable resource for writing papers. The student writing assistants and Professor Koutoulakis are available to help develop, write, edit, and revise papers. The hours for the center are posted on the door, and it is necessary to sign up for an appointment. I would encourage you to use this resource for the writing of papers in this class as well as in all of your courses.
Academic Integrity:
“All
students are expected to act with civility and personal integrity;
respect other students' dignity, rights and property; and help
create and maintain an environment in which all can succeed through
the fruits of their own efforts. An environment of academic integrity
is requisite to respect for self and others in a civil community.
Academic integrity includes a commitment to not engage in or tolerate
acts of falsification, misrepresentation or deception. Such acts
of dishonesty include cheating or copying, plagiarizing, submitting
another person's work as one's own, using Internet sources without
citation, fabricating field data or citations, "ghosting"
(taking or having another student take an exam), stealing examinations,
tampering with the academic work of another student, facilitating
other students' acts of academic dishonesty, etc. Students charged
with a breach of academic integrity will receive due process and,
if the charge is found valid, academic sanctions may range, depending
on the severity of the offense, from F for the assignment to F
for the course.”
Disabilities:
“The
Pennsylvania State University is committed to providing access
to a quality education for all students, including those with
documented disabilities. If a student has a disability and wants
to request an accommodation for a course, it is the responsibility
of the student to first obtain a University accommodation letter
confirming the disability and suggesting appropriate remedies.
This letter can be obtained from the Penn State Office for Disability
Services or the campus Disability Contact Liaisons. The contact
person at Penn State Beaver is the campus nurse whose office is
located in the Administration Building, (724) 773-3955. Students
are encouraged to request their accommodation needs early in the
semester, and once identified, a reasonable accommodation will
be implemented in a timely manner. Students may also access the
website for the Office of Disability Services at University Park.”
Course
Schedule
June 16-20
Monday Historical
Background and Critical Overview; Plato, Republic
and Ion, 17 Aristotle, Poetics, 38
Tuesday Discussion
of Structuralism Read Saussure, Nature
of the Linguistic Sign, 832 Culler, Literary
Competence, 853
Wednesday Discussion
of Structuralism Read Freud, Creative
Writers and Daydreaming and The
Theme of the Three
Caskets,
481 Marx, Consciousness Derived from Material Conditions
and On
Greek Art in its Time, 385
Thursday Continuation
of Post-Structuralism Read Derrida, Structure,
Sign and Play, 878 "Deconstruction and The
Dead" in The Dead, 206 Presentations on The
Dead
Friday Continuation of Post-Structuralism Read Foucault, What
is an Author, 889 Barthes, From
Work to Text, 900 Presentations on The
Dead Position Papers 1 and 2
Due June
23-27
Monday Discussion of Feminism Read Sandra M. Gilbert
and Susan Gubar, Infection
in the Sentence, 1360 Read Showalter, Toward
a Feminist Poetics, 1374
"Feminist Criticism and
The Dead," in The Dead 178 Tuesday Gender
Studies Read Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 1472 Sedgwick, Epistemology
of the Closet, 1481 Presentations on The
Turn of the Screw
Wednesday Discussion
of Culture Studies Read Smith, Contingencies of Value, 1552 Gates, Writing,
‘Race,’ and the Difference it Makes, 1576
Thursday Discussion
of Culture Studies
Read Handouts on Teaching Achebe Essays on Cultural Studies Presentations on Things
Fall Apart
Friday Presentations on Things
Fall Apart Position Papers 3 and 4
Due Conferences Regarding Final
Project
July
3 Thursday Final Projects Due
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