PRESENTATIONS FOR E492 MODERN CRITICAL THEORY
CSU FULLERTON, FALL 2015

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 Questons Page. (They are also available from the syllabus and journals pages.)

3. 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 office hour (or email consultation for second and subsequent presentations, if any) and “advance final draft” requirement is 30% of your grade for the presentation.

4. 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. 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.

PRESENTATIONS / SESSION SCHEDULE

Below is a list containing three things for each session: the authors/texts we will discuss, an indication regarding the study question or range of question choices for each presenter, the presenters’ names, and (after the presentation has been given or missed) the status of the presentation. The author/text 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.

PRESENTATIONS BEGIN DURING WEEK 5

WEEK 5

M. 09/21. Friedrich Nietzsche. “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense” (764-74).

Nietzsche. Any Question relevant to the first third of “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense” (764-74).

W. 09/23. Sigmund Freud. From The Interpretation of Dreams, Chapters V-VI (814-24).

Freud. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the first third of The Interpretation of Dreams, Chapters V-VI (814-24).

Freud. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the second third of The Interpretation of Dreams, Chapters V-VI (814-24).

JOURNAL SET 1 DUE BY EMAIL MONDAY 09/28. (Reminder: this set includes Plato through and including Freud. Please expect an email from me verifying receipt of this and subsequent journal sets.)

WEEK 6

M. 09/28. Ferdinand de Saussure. From Course in General Linguistics (850-66).

De Saussure. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the first half of Course in General Linguistics (850-66).

De Saussure. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the second half of Course in General Linguistics (850-66).

W. 09/30. T.S. Eliot and Cleanth Brooks. Eliot’s “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (955-61) and, from Brooks’ The Well Wrought Urn,: “The Heresy of Paraphrase” (1217-29).

Eliot. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the second half of “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (955-61).

Brooks. PRESENTER OPEN. Any Question relevant to The Well Wrought Urn,: “The Heresy of Paraphrase” (1217-29).

WEEK 7

M. 10/05. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. From Dialectic of Enlightenment (1110-27).

Horkheimer and Adorno. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to Dialectic of Enlightenment (1110-27).

W. 10/07. Walter Benjamin. “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility” (1051-71).

Benjamin. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility” (1051-71).

WEEK 8

M. 10/12. W.E.B. DuBois and Langston Hughes. DuBois’ “Criteria of Negro Art” (870-77) and Hughes’ “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (1192-96).

Du Bois. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to “Criteria of Negro Art” (870-77).

Hughes. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (1192-96).

W. 10/14. Frantz Fanon and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. From Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth: “On National Culture” (1440-46). Gates’ “Talking Black: Critical Signs of the Times” (2430-38).

Fanon. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to The Wretched of the Earth: “On National Culture” (1440-46).

Gates Jr. u>STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to Gates’ “Talking Black: Critical Signs of the Times” (2430-38).

JOURNAL SET 2 DUE BY EMAIL MONDAY 10/19. (De Saussure through and including Henry Louis Gates, Jr.)

WEEK 9

M. 10/19. Simone de Beauvoir. From The Second Sex (1265-73).

De Beauvoir. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the first half of The Second Sex (1265-73).

De Beauvoir. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the second half of The Second Sex (1265-73).

W. 10/21. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar. From The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination: from Chapter 2: “Infection in the Sentence …” (1926-37).

Gilbert and Gubar)). STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the first half of The Madwoman in the Attic … (1926-37).

Gilbert and Gubar. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the second half of The Madwoman in the Attic … (1926-37).

WEEK 10

M. 10/26. Roland Barthes. From Mythologies: “Photography and Electoral Appeal” (1320-21). Read also “The Death of the Author” (1322-26) and “From Work to Text” (1326-31).

Barthes. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to Mythologies: “Photography and Electoral Appeal” (1320-21).

Barthes. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to “The Death of the Author” (1322-26).

W. 10/28. Michel Foucault. “What is an Author?” (1475-90). The following is not assigned, but read if your time permits: from Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison “ The Carceral “ (1490-1502).

Foucault. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the first third of “What is an Author?” (1475-90).

Foucault. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the second third of “What is an Author?” (1475-90).

Foucault. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the final third of “What is an Author?” (1475-90).

WEEK 11

M. 11/02. Claude Lévi-Strauss. From Tristes Tropiques (1273-86).

Lévi-Strauss. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to Tristes Tropiques (1273-86).

W. 11/04. Jacques Derrida. From Of Grammatology: “Exergue” and “The Exorbitant. Question of Method” (1688-97).

Derrida. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to Of Grammatology: “Exergue” and “The Exorbitant. Question of Method” (1688-97).

WEEK 12

M. 11/09. Pierre Bourdieu. From Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste: “Introduction” (1664-70) and from Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field: Part I, from Chapter 2 and Part III, from Chapter 1 (1664-80).

Bourdieu. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste: “Introduction” (1664-70).

Bourdieu. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field… (1664-80).

W. 11/11. Veterans Day Holiday, No Classes.

JOURNAL SET 3 DUE BY EMAIL MONDAY 11/16. (Simone de Beauvoir through and including Pierre Bourdieu.)

PARAGRAPH DESCRIBING TOPIC AND ARGUMENT FOR PAPER DUE BY EMAIL FRIDAY 11/20; SEE INSTRUCTIONS.

WEEK 13

M. 11/16. Zehou Li. From Four Essays on Aesthetics: Toward a Global View: Chapter 8. The Stratification of Form and Primitive Sedimentation” (1748-60).

Li Zehou. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the first half of Four Essays on Aesthetics … (1748-60).

Li Zehou. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the second half of Four Essays on Aesthetics … (1748-60).

W. 11/18. Bruno Latour. “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern” (2282-2302).

Latour. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern”.

Latour. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the second half of “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.”

WEEK 14

M. 11/23. Fall Recess, No Classes.

W. 11/25. Fall Recess, No Classes.

WEEK 15

M. 11/30. J. L. Austin and Judith Butler. Austin’s “Performative Utterances” (1289-1301). From Butler’s Gender Trouble: from “Preface” and Chapter 3: “Subversive Bodily Acts” (2540-53).

Austin. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to “Performative Utterances” (1289-1301).

Butler. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the first half of Gender Trouble: from “Preface” and Chapter 3: “Subversive Bodily Acts” (2540-53).

Butler. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the second half of Gender Trouble: from “Preface” and Chapter 3: “Subversive Bodily Acts” (2540-53).

W. 12/02. Paul Gilroy. From The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (2556-75).

Gilroy. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the first half of The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (2556-75).

Gilroy. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the second half of The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (2556-75).

WEEK 16

M. 12/07. Ross, Andrew. From “The Mental Labor Problem” (2578-97).

Ross. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to “The Mental Labor Problem” (2578-97).

W. 12/09. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. From Empire, Part 2, Section 4: “Symptoms of Passage” (2621-35).

Hardt and Negri. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the first half of Empire, Part 2, Section 4: “Symptoms of Passage” (2621-35).

Hardt and Negri. STUDENT NAME. Any Question relevant to the second half of Empire, Part 2, Section 4: “Symptoms of Passage” (2621-35).

JOURNAL SET 4 DUE BY EMAIL EXAM DAY. (Li Zehou through and including Hardt and Negri.)

FINALS WEEK

Final Exam Date Wed. Dec 16, 2:30-4:20 p.m. Due by email by Wednesday, Dec 23: Paper . (I must turn in grades by Jan. 2, 2016.) For your other courses, check CSUF’s Final Exam Schedule.