ANG 3002     Literary Theory and Criticism                                                   Autumn 2010
Wednesday 4:30 to 7pm                                                                                    Room C-8123
Professor Lianne Moyes,  lianne.moyes@umontreal.ca
C-8128 Pavillon Lionel-Groulx, (514) 343 2218
office hours: Fridays 12-13:30 or by appointment

Description
This course familiarizes students with the many debates that inform and animate contemporary literary studies. Taught in a seminar format, the course allows students to engage actively with theoretical writings associated with Formalism, Structuralism, Marxism, Feminism, Poststructuralism, Gender Studies, Postcolonial Studies and Cultural Studies. Among the concepts we will discuss are: literary form, authorship, (inter)textuality, discourse, literary history, reader response, performativity, canonicity, nationalism, culture, ideology, (anti)colonial theory, critical race theory, power relations, subjectivity, sexuality and gender.

Required Texts
Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd Edition. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004

Requirements
Short papers (two 3-page reading reports circulated by e-mail in advance of class)           40%
Mid-term test on November 3                                                                                          20%
Final paper (7-8 pages) due December 1                                                                          30%
Participation in seminar discussion                                                                                    10%

Schedule of readings
September
1          Introduction
8          Formalism (intro, Eichenbaum, Bakhtin p. 674-685)
15       Structuralism (intro, de Saussure, Jakobson)
22       Reader Response (intro, Fish “interpretive communities,” Bourdieu)
29       Poststructuralism (intro, Derrida “difference,” Johnson)

October
6         Psychoanalysis (intro, Freud “dreams” + “uncanny,” Fanon)
13       Historicisms (intro, Armstrong, Montrose)
20       Political Criticism (intro, Marx “german ideology” + “wage labour,” Gramsci, Althusser)
27       reading week; no class

November
3          mid-term test
10       Gender Studies (intro, Foucault, Butler, Sedgwick)
17       Critical Race theory (intro, Fishkin, Lowe, Parker)        
24       Postcolonial theory (intro, Eldridge, Said, Ngugi)

December
1          Cultural Studies (intro, Horkheimer + Adorno, de Certeau, Hebdige), essays due

Reading Reports (e-mailed to the entire class, including the prof, by the Monday before the Wednesday class on your topic)
1. Each student signs up for two reading reports (one before reading week, one after); maximum two students per week.

2. A reading report focuses on one text by one of the critics under study (not the same critic discussed by another student). If you want to draw a few points of comparison between your critic and others under discussion, you are welcome to do so.

3. A reading report is written in essay form, with an argument: What in your view is the critic’s contribution to the topic of the week? Explain the key critical terms introduced by the critic and highlight the key arguments of the text. What distinguishes the text’s rhetoric and modes of argument?

4. In order to receive a grade, your reading report must circulate BY NOON THE DAY BEFORE the class in which we discuss your theorist and YOU MUST ATTEND CLASS the day of your report. In class, you will present the main arguments of your report and participate in discussion.

5. Do not plagiarise; trust your own reading of the critic’s text and use your own words. Cite secondary sources where you find them useful to your analysis. Include a Works Cited.