PRESENTATIONS FOR E256 LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM
CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY, FALL 2012
EMAIL | SYLLABUS | POLICIES | QUESTIONS | PRESENTATIONS | JOURNALS | PAPER | FINAL
Most sessions will feature one or more student presentations that will give you a chance to hear different perspectives on the course readings, and I will also post the written versions students send me to a special blog so those interested can review them. Your presentations will also help me determine the direction my own comments, encouraging me to respond to your ideas rather than lecture continuously. See the syllabus for the presentation requirement’s value as a percentage of the course grade.
1. On the first day of class, look over the authors or texts on our syllabus and then, next to your name on the roll sheet I will pass around, suggest several authors or texts that you might like to present on. I’ll try to give you the choices you have made, to the extent that the schedule permits. Depending on class size, each student will give two or three presentations. Be aware that if you choose only very popular authors or texts (Jane Austen, Hamlet, etc.), I may need to schedule you for something different.
2. Within a few days, check the schedule on this page to see when and on which authors and questions you are slated to present. I will complete the schedule by choosing specific question/s to be addressed from among the full sets. You can access all author questions using the links below or by visiting the QUESTIONS PAGE. (They are also available from the syllabus and journals pages.)
Insightful responses are better than “answers.” I encourage you in advance to develop your remarks so that they go beyond the question at its simplest. The email consultation and “advance final draft” requirement constitutes 30% of your grade for the presentation.
It’s easy to do well if you prepare in advance and make a good effort, and your colleagues will be supportive. Completing the in-class component is 70% of the grade for each presentation.
5. Please check the schedule below on this page to verify the current status of your in-class presentation and blog entry. Within a few days after you’ve completed both, next to your name should appear the notation (Presentation completed). If you see other notations as indicated below in “How I Evaluate Presentations,” please contact me by email.
HOW I EVALUATE PRESENTATIONS
I will judge presentations on the following grounds: did the student 1) meet with me or email me a timely advance final draft so that I can offer advice and determine the course of my own comments? and 2) seem to have put genuine effort into preparing rather than treating the presentation as a barren “answer” to a stale question. Students who do those two things will receive an “A” for the presentations requirement. I am not going to grade presentations so much on in-class factors as on how well students prepare and (again, if necessary) follow up. I will indicate whether students have completed the requirements: (Presentation completed), (Presented in Class but no written version), (Missed Presentation), (Rescheduled Presentation).
MISSED PRESENTATIONS / RESCHEDULING PRESENTATIONS
If you find that you will be unable to make it to class for one of your scheduled presentations, please let me know in advance if possible. (I’ll make my cell phone number available when the semester begins, though I won’t post it on the Internet.) So long as you have provided me with a timely advance draft of your remarks (I usually print them out and bring them to class), I will read the presentation for you and give you partial credit for the “in-class” portion of the presentation grade. If you haven’t provided me with a final advance draft, I will not read it in class. In such cases, rescheduling on a new author or text may be possible at my discretion and if the schedule allows.
PRESENTATION / SESSION SCHEDULE
Below is a list containing four things for each session: the authors/texts we will discuss, the number of each study question I’ve chosen for discussion (or TBD if it remains to be assigned later), the presenters’ names, and the color-coded status of the presentation. The hyperlinks below will take you to the relevant study questions pages — they are the same pages from which you choose questions for your journal sets. *Please note that I may specify two questions rather than one (as in “12-13 combined”) if I find that two short questions go together well.
STUDY QUESTIONS FOR JOURNALS AND PRESENTATIONS
WEEK 1
Tu. 08/28. Course introduction: Wiki site, procedures and evaluation requirements.
Th. 08/30. Plato. The Republic, Book 7 (Norton 60-64).
WEEK 2
Tu. 09/04. Plato, Aristotle. Plato’s The Republic, Book 10 (64-77). Aristotle’s Poetics (88-115, read approx. first half).
Th. 09/06. Aristotle. Poetics (88-115).
WEEK 3
Tu. 09/11. Horace. “Ars Poetica”; (122-33). Time permitting, I’ll offer a brief contrast with Longinus’ On Sublimity; (136-54), but that work isn’t assigned.
Horace|Horace. Questions 7-8 combined. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Th. 09/13. Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, Dante Alighieri, Sir Philip Sidney. Augustine’s On Christian Teaching (156-62); Aquinas’ Summa Theologica (181-84); Dante’s Il Convivio (186-88) and “The Letter to Can Grande” (188-90); Sidney’s “The Defence of Poesy” (read only 257-58, “There is no art delivered … (through) the poets only deliver a golden” and 262-63, “The philosopher, therefore … (through) “if they be not illuminated or figured forth by the speaking picture of poesy.”)
Augustine. Any Question on this author. Loraine Moore. (Presentation Completed.)
Aquinas. Any Question on this author. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Dante. Any Question on this author. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
WEEK 4
Tu. 09/18. Alexander Pope. “An Essay on Criticism” (349-62).
Pope. Any Question on Part 1. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Pope. Any Question on Part 2. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Th. 09/20. Samuel Johnson. The Rambler, #4 (367-71). Rasselas (371-72). “Preface” to Shakespeare (Okay to read only 379-86, starting with “Shakespeare with his excellencies has likewise faults…”). Read 386-88 if time permits — it’s optional, but an excellent statement about “wit” and Metaphysical poets such as John Donne.
Johnson. Any Question on Rasselas. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Johnson. Any Question on “Preface” to Shakespeare. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
JOURNAL SET 1 DUE BY EMAIL SUNDAY 09/23. (Reminder: this set includes Plato through Samuel Johnson. Please expect an email from me verifying receipt.)
WEEK 5
Tu. 09/25. Immanuel Kant. Critique of the Power of Judgment (414-30, “Analytic of the Beautiful”).
Kant. Any Question in the range of questions 4-8. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Kant. Any Question in the range of questions 9-13. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Th. 09/27. Immanuel Kant. Critique of the Power of Judgment (430-50 “Analytic of the Sublime”).
Kant. Any Question in the range of questions 14-19. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Kant. Any Question in the range of questions 20-26. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
WEEK 6
Tu. 10/02. Georg W.F. Hegel. Phenomenology of Spirit (541-47, “The Master-Slave Dialectic”). Read Lectures on Fine Art (547-55) if time permits — it’s optional.
Hegel. Questions 1-2 combined. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Hegel. Questions 3-5 combined. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Th. 10/04. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (651-55); The German Ideology (655-56); The Communist Manifesto (657-60); Grundrisse (661-62); “Preface” to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (662-63).
Marx and Engels. Any question/s on Economic and Phil. Manuscripts of 1844. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Marx and Engels. Any question/s on The Communist Manifesto. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
WEEK 7
Tu. 10/09. William Wordsworth. “Preface to Lyrical Ballads, with Pastoral and Other Poems“ (559-79).
Wordsworth. Choice of one question from 1-4. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Wordsworth. Choice of one question from 5-7. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Wordsworth. Choice of one question from 8-11. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Th. 10/11. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Biographia Literaria (584-91).
Coleridge. Choice of one question from 5-7. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Coleridge. Choice of one question from 8-11. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
WEEK 8
Tu. 10/16. Charles Baudelaire. The Painter of Modern Life (680-90).
Baudelaire. Choice of one question from 1-5. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Baudelaire. Choice of one question from 6-9. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Th. 10/18. Matthew Arnold and Walter Pater. Arnold’s “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time” (695-714). Pater’s “Conclusion” to Studies in the History of the Renaissance (728-30).
Arnold. Choice of one question from 1-10. STUDENT. (Presentation Rescheduled.)
Pater. Choice of one question from 1-4. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
JOURNAL SET 2 DUE BY EMAIL SUNDAY 10/21. (Reminder: this set includes Kant through Pater).
WEEK 9
Tu. 10/23. Oscar Wilde. “The Decay of Lying” (790-94); “The Critic as Artist” (794-807).
Wilde. Choice of Questions 1-3. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Wilde. Choice of Questions 4-9. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Th. 10/25. Friedrich Nietzsche. “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense” (764-74).
Nietzsche. Choice of Questions 1-3. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Nietzsche. Choice of Questions 4-7. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Nietzsche. Choice of Questions 8-11. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
WEEK 10
Tu. 10/30. Sigmund Freud. The Interpretation of Dreams (814-24).
Freud. Choice of Questions 1-2. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Freud. Question 4. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Freud. Question 5. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Th. 11/01. Ferdinand de Saussure. Course in General Linguistics (850-66).
De Saussure. Choice of Questions 1-4. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
De Saussure. Choice of Questions 5-8. STUDENT. (No Presentation.)
WEEK 11
Tu. 11/06. Cleanth Brooks. The Well Wrought Urn (1217-29, “The Heresy of Paraphrase”).
Brooks. Choice of Questions 1-5. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Brooks. Choice of Questions 6-9. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Th. 11/08. Claude Lévi-Strauss. Triste Tropiques (1277-86, Ch. 28. “A Writing Lesson”).
Lévi-Strauss. Choice of Questions 1-3. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Lévi-Strauss. Choice of Questions 4-6. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
WEEK 12
Tu. 11/13. Roland Barthes. Mythologies (1320-21 “Photography and Electoral Appeal”); “The Death of the Author” (1322-26); “From Work to Text” (1326-31).
Barthes. Choice of Questions 1-3. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Barthes. Choice of Questions 4-9. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Barthes. Choice of Questions 10-18. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Th. 11/15. Michel Foucault. “What Is an Author?” (1475-90); optional: Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1490-1502).
Foucault. Choice of Questions 1-3. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Foucault. Choice of Questions 4-5. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
JOURNAL SET 3 DUE BY EMAIL SUNDAY 11/18. (Reminder: this set includes Wilde through Foucault).
WEEK 13
Tu. 11/20. J. L. Austin. “Performative Utterances” (1289-1301).
Austin. Choice of Questions 1-3. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Austin. Choice of Questions 4-6. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Th. 11/22. No Class, Thanksgiving Holiday.
PARAGRAPH DESCRIBING TOPIC AND ARGUMENT FOR PAPER. (Due by email Monday 11/26.)
WEEK 14
Tu. 11/27. Frantz Fanon and Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, et al. Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1440-46). Thiong’o’s “On the Abolition of the English Department” (1995-2000).
Fanon. Choice of Any Fanon Question. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Ngugi. Choice of Any Ngugi Question. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Th. 11/29. Edward W. Said. Orientalism (1866-88, “Introduction”).
Said. Choice of Questions 1-3. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Said. Choice of Questions 4-6. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
WEEK 15
Tu. 12/04. Simone de Beauvoir. The Second Sex (1265-73, Ch. XI. “Myth and Reality”).
Beauvoir. Choice of Questions 1-2. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Beauvoir. Choice of Questions 3-4. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Th. 12/06. Judith Butler. Gender Trouble (2540-53, from Ch. 3. “Subversive Bodily Acts”).
Butler. Choice of Questions 1-3. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
Butler. Choice of Questions 4-6. STUDENT. (Presentation Completed.)
JOURNAL SET 4 DUE BY EMAIL EXAM DAY. (Reminder: this set includes Austin through Butler.
FINALS WEEK
Final Exam Date: Wednesday Dec 12, 10:45-1:15 p.m. Paper Due by Email Sunday, Dec. 17. I must turn in grades by Tuesday, January 1, 2013.