LITS3304 CONTEMPORARY CRITICAL THEORY 2007 - 2008

MODULE TWO
 

WEEK  SEVEN: KNOWLEDGE: THE CRITIQUE OF 'SCIENCE'
(Week of March 3)
 

REQUIRED READINGS

• Claude Lévi-Strauss "Language and the Analysis of Social Laws" [1951] (pp. 55-66 in Structural Anthropology)
• Louis Althusser "From Capital to Marx's Philosophy" [1965] (p. 11-69 in Reading Capital) (on-line source)

• 07A Lévi-Strauss "Language and the Analysis of Social Laws"
• 07B Althusser "From Capital to Marx's Philosophy"

• Jacques Derrida  "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" [1966] (pp. 83-94 in Adams and Searle) (on-line source)

• 07C Derrida "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences"

RECOMMENDED READINGS

• Leach, Edmund R.  Lévi-Strauss.  New York: Viking, 1970.  Rpt. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1989.
• Kearney, Richard.  "Louis Althusser."  Modern Movements in European Philosophy: Phenomenology, Critical Theory, Structuralism.  Manchester: Manchester UP, 1994.  299-318.
• Kearney, Richard.  "Jacques Derrida."  Modern Movements in European Philosophy: Phenomenology, Critical Theory, Structuralism.  Manchester: Manchester UP, 1994.  113-133.

PHILWEB RESOURCES

• Knowledge Page
• Semiotics / Structuralism Page:
  • Levi-Strauss Page
• Stucturalist Marxism Page:
  • Althusser Page
• Deconstruction Page:
  • Derrida Page

WEEK EIGHT: KNOWLEDGE: THE CRITIQUE OF 'SCIENCE' CONTINUED
(Week of March 10)
 

• Michel Foucault
  • "The Discourse on Language" [1970] (pp. 148-162 in Adams and Searle) (on-line source [excerpts])1
  • "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" [1971] (pp. 76-100 in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow) (on-line source)

• 08A Foucault "The Discourse on Language"
• 08B Foucault "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History"

• Edward Said Orientalism (1978) (see excerpt, pp. 132-149 in Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory, ed. Laura Chrisman and Patrick Williams)

• 08C Said Orientalism

• Kearney, Richard.  "Michel Foucault."  Modern Movements in European Philosophy: Phenomenology, Critical Theory, Structuralism.  Manchester: Manchester UP, 1994.  283-298.
• Moore-Gilbert, Bart.  "Edward Said: Orientalism and Beyond."  Postcolonial Theory: Contexts, Practices, Politics.  London: Verso, 1997.  34-73.

• Foucauldian Theory Page:
  • Foucault Page
• Post-colonial Theory:
  • Said Page

WEEK NINE: LITERARY THEORY: THE AUTHOR / LITERARY HISTORY / INTERTEXTUALITY / CANONICITY2
(Week of March 17)
 

• Boris Tomashevsky "Literature and Biography" [1923] (pp. 47-55 in Readings in Russian Poetics)
• Roman Jakobson and Yurij Tynianov "Problems in the Study of Literature and Language" [1928] (pp. 79-81 in Readings in Russian Poetics) (on-line version [JSTOR access available on campus only])
• Yurij Tynianov "On Literary Evolution" [1929] (pp. 66-78 in Readings in Russian Poetics) (on-line version)

• 09A Tomashevsky "Literature and Biography"
• 09B Jakobson and Tynianov "Problems in the Study of Literature and Language"
• 09C Tynianov "On Literary Evolution"

TU APRIL 1

• Roland Barthes "The Death of the Author" [1968] (pp. 1130-1133 in Adams) (on-line version)
• Harold Bloom Poetry and Repression: "Poetry, Revisionism, Repression" [1976] (pp. 331-344 in Adams and Searle)

• 09D Barthes "The Death of the Author"
• 09E Bloom "Poetry, Revisionism, Repression"

• Jefferson, Ann.  "Russian Formalism."  Modern Literary Theory: a Comparative Introduction.  Ed. Ann Jefferson and David Robey.  London: Batsford, 1982.  16-37.
• Culler, Jonathan.  Roland Barthes.  Oxford: OUP, 1983.
• Norris, Christopher.  "Harold Bloom."  Deconstruction: Theory and Practice.  London: Methuen, 1982.  116-125.

• Author Page
• Literary History / Intertextuality / Canonicity Page
• Semiotics / Structuralism Page: Russian Formalism:
  • Tomashevsky Page
  • Tynianov Page
  • Jakobson Page
• Deconstruction Page:
  • Barthes Page
  • Bloom Page

WEEK TEN: LITERARY THEORY:
THE AUTHOR / LITERARY HISTORY / INTERTEXTUALITY / CANONICITY CONTINUED
(Week of March 24)
 

WED APRIL 2

• Michel Foucault "What is an Author?" [1969] (pp. 138-148 in Adams and Searle) (on-line version)
• Edward Said "Secular Criticism" (1983) (pp. 1-30 in The World, the Text and the Critic; also pp. 605-622 in Adams and Searle)

• 10A Foucault "What is an Author?"
• 10B Said "Secular Criticism"

TR APRIL 3

• Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
  • "Binary Opposites in Chapter One of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave Written by Himself" [1979] (pp. 80-97 in Figures in Black: Words, Signs and the ‘Racial’ Self)
  • The Signifying Monkey (1988): "Figures of Signification" (pp. 89-124)

• 10C Gates "Binary Opposites in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
• 10D Gates "Figures of Signification"

• Kearney, Richard.  "Michel Foucault."  Modern Movements in European Philosophy: Phenomenology, Critical Theory, Structuralism.  Manchester: Manchester UP, 1994.  283-298.
• Moore-Gilbert, Bart.  "Edward Said: Orientalism and Beyond."  Postcolonial Theory: Contexts, Practices, Politics.  London: Verso, 1997.  34-73.
• Bucknell, Brad.  "Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and the Theory of Signifying)."  Ariel 21 (1990): 65-83.

• Foucauldian Theory Page
  • Foucault Page
  • Said Page
• African American Thought:
  • Gates Page

WEEK ELEVEN: LITERARY THEORY: REPRESENTATION / FORM
(Week of March 31)
 

TU APRIL 8

• Roman Jakobson "On Realism in Art" [1921] (pp. 38-46 in Readings in Russian Poetics) (on-line version)
• Tzvetan Todorov "Structural Analysis of Narrative" [1969] (pp. 2099-2106 in Leitch)

• 11A Jakobson "On Realism in Art"
• 11B Todorov "Structural Analysis of Narrative"

WED APRIL 9

• Paul De Man "Semiology and Rhetoric" [1973] (pp. 222-231 in Adams and Searle)
• Roland Barthes "Textual Analysis of a Tale by Edgar Allan Poe" [1973] (pp. 261-293 in The Semiotic Challenge)

• 11C De Man "Semiology and Rhetoric"
• 11D Barthes "Textual Analysis of a Tale by Edgar Allan Poe"

• Jefferson, Ann.  "Russian Formalism."  Modern Literary Theory: a Comparative Introduction.  Ed. Ann Jefferson and David Robey.  London: Batsford, 1982.  16-37.
• Lentricchia, Frank.  "Paul De Man: the Rhetoric of Authority."  After the New Criticism.  Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980.  282-317.
• Culler, Jonathan.  Roland Barthes.  Oxford: OUP, 1983.

• Representation Page
• Semiotics / Structuralism Page: Russian Formalism:
  • Jakobson Page
  • Todorov Page
• Deconstruction Page:
  • De Man Page
  • Barthes Page

WEEK TWELVE: LITERARY THEORY: REPRESENTATION / FORM CONTINUED
(Week of April 7)
 

TR APRIL 10

• Mikhail Bakhtin "Discourse in the Novel" [1935] (pp. 664-678 in Adams and Searle)

• 12A Bakhtin "Discourse in the Novel"

TU APRIL 15

• Terry Eagleton Criticism and Ideology: a Study in Marxist Literary Theory (1976): "Towards a Science of the Text" (pp. 64-101)

• 12B Eagleton "Towards a Science of the Text"

• Dentith, Simon.  "Bakhtin on the Novel."  Bakhtinian Thought: an Introductory Reader.  London: Routledge, 1994.  41-64.
• Kearney, Richard.  "Louis Althusser."  Modern Movements in European Philosophy: Phenomenology, Critical Theory, Structuralism.  Manchester: Manchester UP, 1994.  299-318.

• Dialogism (Bakhtin Circle) Page
  • Bakhtin Page
• Stucturalist Marxism Page:
  • Althusser Page
  • Eagleton Page

WEEK THIRTEEN: LITERARY THEORY: REPRESENTATION / FORM CONTINUED
(Week of April 14)
 

TR APRIL 17

• Homi Bhabha "Representation and the Colonial Text: Some Forms of Mimeticism" (1984) (pp. 93-122 in Frank Gloversmith, ed. The Theory of Reading

• 13 Bhabha "Representation and the Colonial Text: Some Forms of Mimeticism"

• Moore-Gilbert, Bart.  "Homi Bhabha: 'the Babelian Performance.'"  Postcolonial Theory: Contexts, Practices, Politics.  London: Verso, 1997.  114-151.

• Post-colonial Theory:
  • Bhabha Page

FOOTNOTES
 

1. Please note that I changed the reading originally listed here to one that, while treating the same subject, is more widely available and thus accessible.

2. The changes to the schedule are from this point onwards.