Proseminar (407-0-1)
Topic
Proseminar: How to Read
Instructors
Erica Suzanne Weitzman
847/467-1849
1880 Campus Drive, Kresge Hall, Rm 3333
Office Hours: Tues, 3:30-5:30 PM and by appointment
Meeting Info
Kresge 1525 Gender Stud Sem Rm: Wed 3:00PM - 5:50PM
Overview of class
"Reading" has a history. The aim of this course is to examine the past and present of literary interpretation and reception, in order to better understand the changing relationship of art to commentary and, from there, to critically reflect on our own practices and habits of analysis. Questions that will be addressed are: What is the ethics and the politics of reading? How does the reading of literature exist in a symbiotic relationship with the literary text? What is the place of "theory" in literature? What is the import of forms of interpretation vis-à-vis the choice of subject matter being interpreted? What does it mean to read professionally? This seminar will address such questions through a historical overview of particular approaches to reading, with a particular emphasis on contemporary theoretical paradigms and debates culminating in a case study of different approaches to a single work of literature. In parallel to these discussions, students will get instruction in skills necessary to graduate- and professional-level academic work, including the workshopping of previous academic work with an eye towards the preparation of a publication-ready article.
Learning Objectives
- Students will learn about the various methods and approaches to literature that have developed over the last few centuries, and understand the philosophical and historical contexts that contributed to them
- Students will become familiar with current debates and trends in literary theory
- Students will gain the ability to analyze and evaluate literary-critical scholarship and to reflect critically on their own reading practices
- Students will learn skills necessary to professional academic work in literary studies and critical theory
- Students will practice workshopping and editing skills as they expand and revise a paper they have written into an article for potential journal submission
Teaching Method
Seminar
Evaluation Method
Class participation
Presentations
Project, final
Writing assignments
Class Materials (Required)
Jonathan Culler, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (2nd ed., Oxford UP, 2011); ISBN-13 : 978-0199691340