E33D / E60B SEMINAR NOTES

All lecture notes are copyright © Richard L. W. Clarke 2000-Present and may not be quoted or reproduced in any way without his express permission.

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• Do not rely solely on these notes: they should be read in conjunction with the primary source(s) in question (see the reading schedules for Modules 1, 2, and 3.).  

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• If you are unable, for legitimate reasons, to attend particular classes, you have my permission to ask a colleague to record them.  

FOUNDATION WEEK: SEMIOTICS

Week 1: Structuralist Philosophy of Language and Culture

• 1A Saussure Course in General Linguistics
• 1B Levi-Strauss Structural Anthropology

Related Resources:

PhilWeb:  

• What is Philosophy?

  • Continental Philosophy

  • Philosophy of Language

  • Philosophy of Culture

TheoryWeb:

• What is Critical Theory?

MODULE ONE: DIALOGISM

Week 2: Bakhtinian Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind, Epistemology

• 2A Volosinov Marxism and the Philosophy of Language: Part II

  • 2Ai Supplement: Bakhtin "The Problem of Speech Genres"

• 2B Volosinov Marxism and the Philosophy of Language: Part I

Week 3: Bakhtinian Philosophy of Literature

• 3A Medvedev The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship: "The Object and Tasks of Marxist Literary Scholarship" (see Robert Schmid's synopsis)

• 3B Volosinov Freudianism: a Critical Sketch: "Constructing a Sociological Poetics" (see Rosemary Phillips' synopsis)

• 3C Bakhtin Problems of Dostoievsky's Poetics (see Debra Providence's synopsis)

• 3D Bakhtin Discourse in the Novel

Week 4: African American Philosophies of Language and Literature: Dialogical Emphases

• 4A

• 4B Gates The Signifying Monkey

Related Resources: 

• PhilWeb: Dialogism

• TheoryWeb: Dialogical Critical Theory

MODULE TWO: DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Week 5:

• 5A Foucault "The Discourse on Language" 

• 5B Foucault The Archaeology of Knowledge

• 5C Foucault "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History"

•  

Week 6:

• 6A Said Secular Criticism

• 6B Fish What Makes an Interpretation Acceptable

• 6C Foucault What is an Author? (see Andre Harewood's synopsis)

Week 7:

• 7A Butler "Gender Trouble, Feminist Theory, and Psychoanalytic Discourse" (see Rosemary Phillips' synopsis)

• 7B Martin "Feminism, Criticism and Foucault" (see Debra Providence's synopsis)

• 7C Radway "Interpretive Communities and Variable Literacies: the Functions of Romance Reading" (see Robert Schmid's synopsis)

Week 8:

• 8A Said Orientalism

• 8B Tiffin "Post-Colonial Literatures and Counter-Discourse"

Related Resources:

• PhilWeb: Foucauldian Discourse Analysis

• TheoryWeb: Foucauldian Discursive Criticism

MODULE THREE: STRUCTURALIST MARXISM

Week 9:

• 9: The Genealogy of Structuralist Marxism: from Hegelianism to Hegelian Marxism
• 9A: Althusser "Contradiction and Overdetermination:
  • Addendum on 'Survivals'
• 9B: Althusser "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses"

Week 10:

• 10: A Genealogy of Structuralist Marxist Critical Theory
• 10A: Eagleton Criticism and Ideology: 
  • "Categories for a Materialist Criticism" 
  • "Towards a Science of the Text" (see Robert Schmid's synopsis)
• 10B: Balibar and Macherey "On Literature as an Ideological Form"

Week 11:

• 11 Barrett Women's Oppression Today: "Ideology and the Cultural Production of Gender"

Week 12:

• 12A Hall "Race, Articulation and Societies Structured in Dominance" (see Debra Providence's synopsis)

• 12B JanMohamed Manichean Aesthetics: the Politics of Literature in Colonial Africa (see Rosemary Phillips' synopsis and abbreviated synopsis)

Related Resources:

• PhilWeb: Structuralist Marxism

• TheoryWeb: Structuralist Marxist Critical Theory

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